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[SPEAKER_00]: Sisters, how y'all feel?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Brothers, y'all all right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: If this is your first time at Truth's Table, welcome to the Table, and you've been sitting at the table with us all these years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We are so grateful that you have been listening to us through these years, and we are inviting you to partner with us and support our work at patreon.com slash Truth's Table.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, pull up a chair and have a seat at the table with us.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So you've probably seen,
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[SPEAKER_01]: movie with you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And let me tell you how I'm confident that you know what I'm talking about because Cynthia and Ariana were everywhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They had a significant publicity budget and they were everywhere short of this pulpit, okay?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And they didn't even have to do all that for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a former theater kid and actually once a theater kid always a theater kid, you in the house.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, as a musical lover who really thinks that heaven will be a musical, I really believe that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So just, so just get you to it if you don't like them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm working on that now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have to do all that to get my ticket and I'd already seen it on stage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The central character is Elfaba.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all know where the green one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The misunderstood one, she is the person in the center of the story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the story is told, and as stories often are not told this way, it's told from the bottom up and not the top down.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you tell a story from the bottom up and not the top down, then you get a whole different interpretation of what is happening, don't you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So let's listen to those bottom up stories every once in a while, man.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, Elfaba is the central character of this story, and from the very beginning, she seeks to do what is right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She knows what it's like to be ostracized and to be mistreated and to be disrespected.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She knows what it's like to not fit in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what does she get for this pursuit of kindness?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does she get for standing up and saying what other people should be saying, but won't say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What did she get for that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: A statue, a sticker, a metal, nah, y'all know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She gets hunted.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She gets hated.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She gets called a witch, which is what all strong women get called sometimes, when they say the right thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She gets labeled as the villain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Look, he here at that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, there are so many songs in this musical that the real fans love, but this is the one that draws me close.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It captures this very dynamic that she's experiencing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The lyrics go, no good deed goes unpunished.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No act of charity goes unresented.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's my new creed is what Elphaba sings at the top of her lungs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that income with the playwright of wicked.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It appears as early as the 12th century, and it simply means that acts of moral courage can often backfire.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The person who does right gets met with ingratitude, exploitation, or even death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: St. Thomas Aquinas insisted that every good deed is ultimately rewarded.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I agree with Aquinas on this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think he got there from the Bible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that's on the eternal ledger of thanks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In this fallen world between now and the not yet, the ledger does not always balance before sundown.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And history would agree with Aquinas,
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[SPEAKER_01]: and with the Word of God, and my thoughts this morning, I think as well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a couple of folks in the room who I think can testify.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To what it is like to do or try to do the right thing, or say what God has said to say, and to be meant with hostility.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not talking about people in the pews.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about some folks from history, like Durk Willems.
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[SPEAKER_01]: a 16th century anobaptist hunted for his faith.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And he turned back while escaping prison to rescue the pursuing guard that was after him, who had fallen through thin ice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't know, I might have kept running.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But the guard immediately expressed gratitude followed by recapturing him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And Williams was
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tortured and burned at the stake.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He would have saved the man who had handed him over to death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that sounds a lot like Jesus doesn't it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then let's not forget the testimony of Juliet Hampton Morgan, who, if you've listened close, you may have heard us mention her name.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The Montgomery librarian, a granddaughter of the confederacy,
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[SPEAKER_01]: And she's backed her short life, advocating for racial justice, this quiet woman who dealt with daily, deep, limiting anxiety, something would compare her to speak up when others told her to shut up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And she wrote, because family and friends had turned their backs on her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: death threats had come.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She wrote in her notes this fierce librarian, the cuts from old friends, the ringing telephone calls, from anonymous voices, I know how it feels as what she says, when butterflies in your stomach turn to buzzers, overwhelmed from doing the right thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the 1957, a cross was burned on her lawn.
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[SPEAKER_01]: because when you advocate for people, when you really advocate for people, people will start treating you the way they treat those people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that night, that night, filled with fear and abandoned by so many who are supposed to love her, she chose to not go forward, not another breath.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Willems and Morgan testified to us this morning about what it feels like when no good D goes unpunished.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we have one more witness this morning, maybe you, but I'm not going to bring you up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's Elijah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is the prophet Elijah who we have been hearing about for weeks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He is here to testify that no good D goes unpunished, but more than that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that he will show us this morning that while it may feel like no good deed will go unpunished, that God has something special for the one who stands and takes risk for righteousness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yay, does.
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[SPEAKER_01]: God does this special thing for those who are running on empty.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is not just a word for the bold this morning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is a word for the weary this morning or better yet a whisper for the weary this morning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah has a testimony for us.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had just called down fire from heaven.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine that would be an amazing thing to see and have God work through you to do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had just stood alone on a mountain against 450 false prophets and watched God publicly embarrass the entire bail religion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He has just proven, well, rather God has proven, through using him, without ambiguity that God is God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that bail is nothing in all these other false gods.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or nothing but a means for humiliation and corruption.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He has gone from being under a broom tree in the wilderness, asking God to blot him out, to now hiding in a cave.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He has convinced he is the only one left who cares about what is right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a dangerously vulnerable place to be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah had performed the greatest prophetic act of his generation and is now on the run from a queen, Queen Jezebel, who once him did, and let me tell you, when Queen Jezebel wants you dead, she can deliver.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you've ever done the right thing, you try to, anyway, and felt the full weight of the wrong response to your right thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and been mistreated for it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you've spoken truth and been threatened for it, if you stood righteously and been left standing alone, where did everybody go?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Where did they go?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I got the text messages and when I left the meeting after saying what needed to be said, then they came up to me and said, I'm going to say that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever had that feeling, well, you might relate to our big brother Elijah this morning and where he is in our narrative.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to remind us, because I believe that miracles still happen and that God can do all things.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I want you to hear me well that signs in wonders don't change hard hearts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They don't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Common sense doesn't unlock an addiction to idols.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes even witnessing the grave consequences of those who refuse to repent will not move people who believe they are inherently the exception to God's law.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not me, I mean, that's for y'all to follow, but not me, if they just don't wanna bend the knee
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[SPEAKER_01]: And let me tell you, there is nothing in a dollar to hate more, because I've had some of my dollar tree in my heart, so I'm speaking for what I know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing in a dollar to hate more than an honest prophet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, hey, don't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, don't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Just hate the way they talk.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, when they walk up on the platform, what they're gonna say?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It does not matter the technique they use, although they should use a gracious and thoughtful and skilled technique, and they ought to live above reproach their yes being their yes and their no being their no, they ought to use great wisdom in their communication because the heart of the truth, the more skilled that is needed to deliver it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So they can be a gifted communicator, but it will sound like nails on a chalkboard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If the truth being spoken, threatens an idol, they treasure more than freedom in God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So Elijah, a real prophet, is disappointed.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's surprised and he's convinced that he's the last man standing for God's ways.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The only one still taking risks for righteousness,
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[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, Elijah, like us, has formidable foes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he got real enemies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's a not figment of his imagination.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's got, this is not paranoia.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He got real enemies, y'all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Queen Jezebel was not dabbling in bailism.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She was its chief spokesperson, a loyal and obsessive keeper of a false religion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Statues of Bale all over this land.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In Ahab, King Ahab, who had married her for political expediency and power, was ruling through a line that was seized by a military coup.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's how he got into the position that he got in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His father that came before him by military force had taken that position.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to remind us this morning that when people are consumed with defending an illegitimate position, they're paranoid.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They don't get found out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They think they're going to get caught.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So A. Habs merits to Jezebel didn't just introduce bail into the palace amongst the monarchy, uh-huh, it normalized this fake religion amongst all the people of God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the seductive poor of this religion, for the people of God, not the non-people of God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about the church people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The seductive appeal of bailism for the church people had three thought lines that tempted Israel's loyalty to the true and living God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here are the three.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Cardinal indulgence, repackage as freedom, and visible certainty over unseen faithfulness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does that look like?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna trust in Jehovah for eternal life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's good on that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm gonna trust in these systems of wickedness and this reign that will fall and give me my crops in order to get the money that I need.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One hand on the Bible, and one hand in our broken world views about money.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The other one, Cardinal indulgence, repackaged as freedom, I mean, the people of God had experienced the many rules and boundaries that God had given about their bodies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here was Bale, saying, no, no, no, no, no.
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[SPEAKER_01]: over here in this religion, not the one that follows the ways of God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we do what we want to do with our bodies.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we call it freedom.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bae on normalized sexual sin, not just out there, but in here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He normalized sexual sin that false religion in and amongst the worship, including temple prostitution, how bold.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So even though God is ancient and eternal, I wanna be clear, God is not primitive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We have not arrived beyond God's wisdom.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the last one, visible certainty over unseen faithfulness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: God is unseen to us, although he has been revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Before these saints back in ancient Israel, they were called to a faith that told them to entrust themselves to a God that they could not see.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here was Bill offering a statue on every corner
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[SPEAKER_01]: for those who wanted to see and to touch something made by human hands.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The people ran to the false reassurances of bail is in, while thinking they could also hold on to the true security of the true God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does a desire for financial stability or abundance?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does sexual expression outside of God's word
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does controlling certainty and freeing faith lead you to worship alongside God?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does it tempt me to worship alongside God?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So God has sent the fire.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The prophets of Bale have been silenced.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The evidence is overwhelming y'all and yet A have ingest about they double down.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They doubled down.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine 450 prophets slain and you doubled down in your sin?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine fire from God Almighty coming down and people doubled down in this sin?
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[SPEAKER_01]: The evidence is overwhelming and their response to what you and I might this morning think is obvious is to go deeper into darkness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: obvious to us.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You would think that after witnessing that kind of victory, that they had witnessed or heard about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that they would have dropped to their knees.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They would have said,, Jehovah, Jira, my provider, oh God forgive me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You would have thought after they had seen the slaying of those prophets, they would have said, I don't know, I have mercy on me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You would have thought they would have said, Lord of hosts, I have sinned.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What must I do to be saved?
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[SPEAKER_01]: But they didn't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we don't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the lesson that Elijah had to learn the hard way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so do we.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What looks like a victory ain't a victory to everybody.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some people hate the victories of God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that brings us to this peculiar first point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it is peculiar, but I mean it, beware of victories.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A victory in and of itself can deceive us in three ways.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And again, we should save for what is good.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We should rejoice when good things happen.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But if we get stuck on a victory, oh, we can get stuck.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So here are three ways that a victory can deceive us.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They can cause us to forget how deeply entrenched sin really is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that fire in the slaying of the prophets would have been enough, but man, that bail isn't
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[SPEAKER_01]: Deep Deep, and just about wasn't just a spokesperson, I mean her daddy was a priest of realism.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This goes way back.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We can forget how deep sin really runs in our own heart and in the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Secondly, a way that it can deceive us, these victories, is that they can give us confidence in the victory rather than the source of the victory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The fire had come, the prophets had been, the false prophets had been silenced.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But let's not be impressed with that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's be amazed by the God who has the power to do that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so sometimes it's easy for us to make a victory greater than God in our minds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The one who has given us the victory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, and finally, victories can deceive us because they can tempt us to predict the outcome of the victory.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This has happened, so now I know what must happen next.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then we find ourselves defestated when a victory happens and what we thought should happen next doesn't.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We have a persistent enemy folks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: An enemy that makes A-hab and Jezebel look like amateurs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: An enemy that is not flesh and blood but principalities and we will resist and wrestle until we're glorified.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A great victory, a great moral victory by God, has two responses, two responses, two paths,
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when we refuse to bring our broken hearts to God, often because we make carry a vision of God that is inconsistent with Scripture, or we are just afraid, we see meant in our sin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When we step in the wet scene, the wet scene meant of sin, and we all step in the wet scene meant of sin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And idolatry, we can be tempted to hide our shoes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've stepped in that wet seat, man again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Shame says act like you are in wet seat, man.
21:35.541 --> 21:46.385
[SPEAKER_01]: And the seat, man, we're standing in gross harder and harder and harder around our ankles, the longer we wait and pretend we're not standing in it.
21:47.506 --> 21:53.468
[SPEAKER_01]: We start to feel stuck after a while, but we could have got out of, feels like we can't get out of it now.
21:55.132 --> 22:10.405
[SPEAKER_01]: As though this place of despair has become our permanent address, then through the love of God, the community of faith shows up to break that cement up.
22:12.807 --> 22:13.388
[SPEAKER_01]: That's grace.
22:14.369 --> 22:15.330
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a call out.
22:15.830 --> 22:16.471
[SPEAKER_01]: That's grace.
22:18.392 --> 22:21.095
[SPEAKER_01]: But let us move while the cement is
still wet.
22:22.522 --> 22:24.142
[SPEAKER_01]: Because time won't make it better.
22:25.143 --> 22:27.723
[SPEAKER_01]: Time doesn't remit or relinquish sin.
22:28.143 --> 22:35.085
[SPEAKER_01]: And these people have become cemented in a sin that God is trying to break them free from.
22:36.406 --> 22:48.789
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're in C. Man a long time, long enough that it's no longer an accident or moral mistake, you tell yourself in others that maybe this is the place where you just belong.
22:51.570 --> 22:53.491
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what these folks say.
22:54.372 --> 22:56.293
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this is the place where I just belong.
22:57.494 --> 23:02.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'll be the spokesperson, like Jezebel and Ahead for Bayelism.
23:03.919 --> 23:15.807
[SPEAKER_01]: So our first point is beware of victories because they tempt us to think that the victory and not the God who brought the change is the one who ultimately changes hearts.
23:17.175 --> 23:24.363
[SPEAKER_01]: Repentance and repair is the fruit of a people who truly behold the glory of God.
23:24.703 --> 23:25.604
[SPEAKER_01]: You know him.
23:26.064 --> 23:31.130
[SPEAKER_01]: You show that you know God by a posture of repentance and repair.
23:33.112 --> 23:35.935
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the posture, it's a posture of repentance and repair.
23:38.037 --> 23:38.558
[SPEAKER_01]: Second point.
23:39.900 --> 23:43.981
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to let God define success in God's work.
23:44.661 --> 23:48.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh Elijah and oh the Elijah in my own heart in yours.
23:49.362 --> 23:52.082
[SPEAKER_01]: God has to define success in God's work.
23:52.123 --> 23:53.383
[SPEAKER_01]: It's God's business after all.
23:55.483 --> 24:03.965
[SPEAKER_01]: First Kings, 199 reads, and there he went into the cave and spent the night, and the word of the Lord came to him, what are you doing here, Elijah?
24:05.918 --> 24:10.319
[SPEAKER_01]: And see, one God asks a question, it is definitely for our benefit.
24:11.099 --> 24:12.340
[SPEAKER_01]: God is omniscient.
24:12.900 --> 24:16.901
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not gathering information about something that God does not already know.
24:17.721 --> 24:20.582
[SPEAKER_01]: So the question is for us, not God.
24:21.522 --> 24:26.203
[SPEAKER_01]: The question is for us to initiate, to catalyze, to search.
24:27.324 --> 24:31.645
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we might hear the truth even said out of our own mouths over us.
24:32.803 --> 24:42.531
[SPEAKER_01]: So Eliza response, however, to God's question, what are you doing here, is a resume of his obedience.
24:44.492 --> 24:46.734
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he just like, let me tell you who I am to you, God.
24:48.575 --> 24:55.201
[SPEAKER_01]: Mixed with absolute desperation and a subtle indictment of God.
24:56.343 --> 25:03.845
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go on on what he says, and I understand it because have you ever wanted to tell on people to God?
25:03.865 --> 25:10.426
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Lord says, like, pray for your enemies, but if you really listen to your prayers, you're tattling.
25:10.986 --> 25:12.966
[SPEAKER_01]: You're tattling on people, it's what you're doing.
25:13.547 --> 25:14.387
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you're doing.
25:15.327 --> 25:16.087
[SPEAKER_01]: I do it too.
25:16.647 --> 25:19.708
[SPEAKER_01]: At the end, I try to clean it up lower, bless them, bless them, bless them.
25:23.900 --> 25:26.221
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's hear how Elijah does it.
25:26.601 --> 25:27.801
[SPEAKER_01]: First King's 1910.
25:28.401 --> 25:32.702
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I have been very cellist for the Lord God Almighty.
25:35.403 --> 25:37.364
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been about this life for you, Jesus.
25:38.704 --> 25:39.164
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
25:39.824 --> 25:40.405
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
25:41.365 --> 25:41.845
[SPEAKER_01]: Me.
25:41.865 --> 25:44.946
[SPEAKER_01]: I have said the things the others didn't want to say.
25:44.966 --> 25:46.166
[SPEAKER_01]: I showed up.
25:46.546 --> 25:47.386
[SPEAKER_01]: I've gone to church.
25:47.547 --> 25:48.407
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the things.
25:49.047 --> 25:50.067
[SPEAKER_01]: Me, me, me.
25:50.807 --> 25:52.488
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been cellist for you, Lord God Almighty.
25:54.613 --> 25:58.076
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says, I've been jealous and look at these other trifling folks.
25:58.476 --> 26:00.678
[SPEAKER_01]: They have rejected your covenant.
26:02.859 --> 26:04.560
[SPEAKER_01]: They tore down your alters.
26:05.801 --> 26:09.044
[SPEAKER_01]: And they put your prophets to death with the sword.
26:09.844 --> 26:16.089
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how they feel about your word because the way you treat a prophet, that's how you feel about God's word.
26:17.410 --> 26:19.472
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm the only one left.
26:20.853 --> 26:22.534
[SPEAKER_01]: And now they try to kill me to go.
26:24.620 --> 26:37.448
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah selling on on people, and God could have corrected him immediately, because I hope you hear the need for some correction in the things that Elijah just said.
26:37.508 --> 26:43.592
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he does now a little bit like me sometimes, but do you hear the need for some correction in the things that he said?
26:45.153 --> 26:48.455
[SPEAKER_01]: What Elijah is saying represents his truth?
26:49.392 --> 26:52.493
[SPEAKER_01]: History, y'all heard that expression, y'all said it yourself.
26:53.173 --> 26:56.954
[SPEAKER_01]: My truth, y'all truth, Leah, Leah's truth, Christina's truth, yeah, okay.
26:57.734 --> 27:00.235
[SPEAKER_01]: God's got God's truth, and that's the whole truth.
27:03.496 --> 27:09.077
[SPEAKER_01]: And he most certainly feels, it most certainly feels like truth to him.
27:10.618 --> 27:12.098
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like truth to him.
27:13.118 --> 27:18.580
[SPEAKER_01]: And he governs himself and we govern ourselves based on what we think is true, even if it's not.
27:19.792 --> 27:26.256
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not
objective truth, and we don't respond based on objective truth.
27:27.256 --> 27:32.099
[SPEAKER_01]: We govern ourselves by what we think or rather feel like is true.
27:32.920 --> 27:43.126
[SPEAKER_01]: And we might even ignore, we might even ignore, the actual validating means of truth, so that we can stay in our deception.
27:43.386 --> 27:45.007
[SPEAKER_01]: Shut that Bible up, shut it up.
27:46.362 --> 27:51.787
[SPEAKER_01]: So Elijah's pain induced, it's a pain, it's pain, it's real pain, he's afraid, this woman's coming to get him.
27:52.628 --> 28:06.760
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah is afraid, this is a pain induced alternative truth, and it shapes his view of himself, the world, his sense of hope, and how he sees God now.
28:08.651 --> 28:15.515
[SPEAKER_01]: However, instead of immediately correcting this guy prepares the soil of Elijah's heart to receive truth, because God is a kind God.
28:16.176 --> 28:20.338
[SPEAKER_01]: And he teaches Elijah experientially, he said, I'm just not going to talk to you about it.
28:20.358 --> 28:21.579
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to show you some things.
28:22.219 --> 28:34.366
[SPEAKER_01]: He offers Elijah reminders of who God is, because the weary and well-doing crowd always need reminders of who God is.
28:36.390 --> 28:45.536
[SPEAKER_01]: First King's 19, 11 through 12 read, and then a great and powerful win toward the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord.
28:47.578 --> 28:48.599
[SPEAKER_01]: Powerful hurricane.
28:49.419 --> 28:58.205
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Lord was not in the wind, and the wind, and after the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
28:58.866 --> 29:04.710
[SPEAKER_01]: And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
29:05.810 --> 29:31.225
[SPEAKER_01]: And after the fire came a gentle whisper, God is allowing Elijah in us to experience a callback, a remembering of the ways of a covenant keeping in establishing God, the wind, the earthquake, and the fire.
29:32.469 --> 29:47.577
[SPEAKER_01]: The wind, the wind, the wind that God can send that can literally change environmental compositions that can change circumstances and environments, shatters hard rocks.
29:48.818 --> 29:57.843
[SPEAKER_01]: This mirrors the parting of the red sea that God had done before in Exodus 14 in Elijah and maybe you and I know about that.
29:59.010 --> 30:17.225
[SPEAKER_01]: God's mastery over nature, Elijah and Coineania this morning, do you see the power of the wind rescuing God's people from their pressing enemies hat on their trail, but God, in this instance, would not be in the wind.
30:18.526 --> 30:19.206
[SPEAKER_01]: He could do it.
30:19.947 --> 30:22.689
[SPEAKER_01]: He had done it that way and don't you forget it.
30:23.590 --> 30:26.072
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is not where he is at this moment.
30:26.938 --> 30:35.620
[SPEAKER_01]: The earthquake echoes Mount Sinai, Exodus 19, God's terrifying, law-giving majesty.
30:36.520 --> 30:43.562
[SPEAKER_01]: God's governance and authority as he builds a people's communal identity and boundaries.
30:45.122 --> 30:46.942
[SPEAKER_01]: But God was not in the earthquake.
30:47.743 --> 30:48.863
[SPEAKER_01]: He could do it that way.
30:49.603 --> 30:51.843
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not the way he would do it for Elijah.
30:52.844 --> 30:54.044
[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, the fire.
30:55.250 --> 31:03.954
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah still smelling like smoke, because there's nothing more powerful to our senses in our memory than scent.
31:05.435 --> 31:07.976
[SPEAKER_01]: And it triggers all kinds of things for us.
31:09.177 --> 31:20.462
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he's recalling the altar at Carmel, where God's consuming holiness in judgment had just happened, and he was there, and God had done it through him.
31:24.958 --> 31:30.743
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a witness to it, and yet God was not coming this time in a mighty fire.
31:32.425 --> 31:43.875
[SPEAKER_01]: God is using the full memory of His mighty works, and then steps beyond all of them to his broken and depressed and exhausted servant.
31:45.797 --> 31:50.962
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly God is majestic in mighty over our enemies, and the enemy of sin that is in us.
31:52.194 --> 32:03.022
[SPEAKER_01]: But God comes to Elijah with personal comfort and deep nearness in the tenderness of a small, still voice.
32:05.764 --> 32:08.546
[SPEAKER_01]: But what if I want God the way I want God?
32:10.167 --> 32:11.207
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then you might miss him.
32:13.529 --> 32:14.530
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he's not there.
32:16.672 --> 32:22.838
[SPEAKER_01]: It is in our best interest, Saints, to receive God as God gives Godself to us.
32:24.499 --> 32:31.306
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe you've come in this morning and you are weary in your well-doing, or you're just weary in being, you're just tired.
32:32.636 --> 32:38.101
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you need to be reminded, because God does this through grace, he reminds us of who God is.
32:38.921 --> 32:43.986
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you need to be reminded of the God who reigns victoriously over all things.
32:44.946 --> 32:57.877
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you need to be reminded of the God who heals, still heals, and calls little girls from their deathbed to raise up again, and Lazarus out of the cave, maybe you need to be reminded.
32:58.818 --> 33:16.341
[SPEAKER_01]: of a God who stops the stoning, drop your stones, leave that woman caught in adultery alone, rescues her from the judgment of other sinners, and then tells her, go in sin no more.
33:17.230 --> 33:19.471
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you need that reminder this morning.
33:20.091 --> 33:26.993
[SPEAKER_01]: God is not simply reminding Elijah of who he is as an ego-boost or checking him for his folly.
33:27.473 --> 33:35.336
[SPEAKER_01]: God is saying, look at who I am because God is going to provide what is needed in every circumstance for us.
33:36.456 --> 33:38.437
[SPEAKER_01]: Look to
God.
33:40.877 --> 33:43.218
[SPEAKER_01]: You might thank you, need an earth shaking act.
33:44.238 --> 33:45.699
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lord knows I like miracles.
33:46.972 --> 33:49.934
[SPEAKER_01]: But what you need first is a whisper from the living God.
33:51.055 --> 33:53.557
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you really need this morning.
33:54.538 --> 34:02.784
[SPEAKER_01]: When dealing with the enemies of our soul and life, discouraging realities, we can think, you know what we need right now, some punishment and judgment.
34:04.906 --> 34:06.927
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we need, some good old judgment.
34:09.929 --> 34:10.830
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't be the only one.
34:12.251 --> 34:13.132
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I have thoughts.
34:14.524 --> 34:28.336
[SPEAKER_01]: After I do those prayers, where I tell old people, in my mind, I think about what Lord, you could do this, and you could do that, that I cleaned it up with, give them grace, Lord.
34:28.577 --> 34:34.842
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're like, hey, God, come in the form of punishment for these people, right?
34:37.445 --> 34:39.807
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is not what changes and converts a heart.
34:41.278 --> 34:44.399
[SPEAKER_01]: Punishment does not change and convert a heart.
34:47.421 --> 34:50.242
[SPEAKER_01]: And said, it is the still small voice of God.
34:50.922 --> 34:57.945
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking to the human heart that is actually the most powerful converter of a stony heart.
34:59.806 --> 35:03.888
[SPEAKER_01]: God's power and God's judgment are true and right and God gets to do it.
35:04.768 --> 35:08.270
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is God's gentle voice that saves.
35:09.760 --> 35:15.983
[SPEAKER_01]: God's gentle voice saves, it is God's kindness that leads to repentance.
35:17.443 --> 35:24.907
[SPEAKER_01]: If a kindness and the glory and the mercy and the grace of God won't do it, then nothing else will.
35:26.267 --> 35:34.891
[SPEAKER_01]: So God defines victory in God's work and you are a part of God's work and God will be victorious in your life.
35:39.014 --> 35:46.196
[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, 0.3, we have to live a whisper-ready life, a whisper-ready life.
35:47.156 --> 35:58.340
[SPEAKER_01]: First King's 1912, and after the fire came a gentle whisper, and when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face, and he went out, and he stood at the mouth of the cave.
35:59.280 --> 36:06.442
[SPEAKER_01]: He pulled that cloak over his face, and he's about to get near to God, and he's also afraid
36:09.213 --> 36:18.099
[SPEAKER_01]: And before God corrects Elijah before a single word of revoke or redirection, God has already tended to him through rest and nourishment.
36:19.080 --> 36:21.082
[SPEAKER_01]: God does not shame exhaustive people.
36:21.122 --> 36:21.782
[SPEAKER_01]: He corrects them.
36:21.802 --> 36:24.304
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't get it twisted, but he sustains them.
36:25.923 --> 36:35.888
[SPEAKER_01]: And the whisper that God gives, the whisper that God gives, accomplishes so many things for Elijah's heart, yours and mine.
36:36.788 --> 36:38.789
[SPEAKER_01]: That whisper reminds us of who God is.
36:39.590 --> 36:44.292
[SPEAKER_01]: It reminds us of who we are, still chosen, still calls, still God's servants.
36:44.972 --> 36:53.837
[SPEAKER_01]: It reminds us of what God has promised that there are still 7,000 faithful, and there still work to be done.
36:55.083 --> 36:55.483
[SPEAKER_01]: Buck up.
36:58.164 --> 37:12.667
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not mistake noise or earth shaking acts for nearness of God, because just because God is not loud does not mean God is absent in your situation.
37:14.087 --> 37:19.749
[SPEAKER_01]: So as yourself are you so crowded with noise in your life and movement that you're never still?
37:20.929 --> 37:22.069
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you looking for something
37:25.880 --> 37:36.363
[SPEAKER_01]: run the take back, do you only value the miraculous demanding feast when God has called us to live by daily bread?
37:37.283 --> 37:44.225
[SPEAKER_01]: Be still, not apathetic, not cold, not disconnected, not checked out, be still, there's a difference.
37:45.225 --> 37:52.427
[SPEAKER_01]: With an inner spiritual ear attuned and yearning for the whisper of God, do you want to hear the whisper of God this morning?
37:54.872 --> 37:58.954
[SPEAKER_01]: Charles Merge and said that Elijah was probably feeling like a whole failure right now.
38:00.915 --> 38:06.737
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the success at the mountain had melted like the morning mist, a high high to a low low.
38:07.558 --> 38:09.058
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you've had that feeling in life.
38:10.659 --> 38:14.221
[SPEAKER_01]: He thought his career had been a failure all along.
38:15.161 --> 38:19.603
[SPEAKER_01]: Because failure in one moment can cause you to look at all the things that have happened before.
38:22.803 --> 38:31.532
[SPEAKER_01]: And to a true prophet, what he long for was to see the people reverence Jehovah, and that is not what he saw.
38:32.373 --> 38:35.336
[SPEAKER_01]: He saw people hunkered down in their sin.
38:38.259 --> 38:41.503
[SPEAKER_01]: But God upholds Elijah, and God will uphold you.
38:42.560 --> 38:44.001
[SPEAKER_01]: God reminds Elijah.
38:44.861 --> 38:52.844
[SPEAKER_01]: He even recommissions Elijah and shows him that ministry is bigger than him and that he's not alone.
38:54.065 --> 39:03.429
[SPEAKER_01]: In this powerful moment, God meets an exhausted and despairing prophet who believed he was the last faithful person on earth.
39:06.430 --> 39:09.251
[SPEAKER_01]: And rather than offering comfort alone,
39:12.797 --> 39:20.342
[SPEAKER_01]: He puts him back on mission, and he tells him a little peak of the future to come.
39:21.183 --> 39:25.206
[SPEAKER_01]: He's shown him the past, and he showed him a little peak of the future to come.
39:26.447 --> 39:28.288
[SPEAKER_01]: That faithful prophets will come from you.
39:28.989 --> 39:32.151
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on, my work will be done.
39:33.812 --> 39:34.693
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on, Saints.
39:34.953 --> 39:38.475
[SPEAKER_01]: God's work will be done in you and through you.
39:42.672 --> 39:46.775
[SPEAKER_01]: not just the any prophet, but the greatest prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ.
39:47.556 --> 39:49.897
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah had felt abandoned.
39:50.778 --> 39:55.061
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus, the great of prophet, was truly abandoned.
39:56.082 --> 39:58.343
[SPEAKER_01]: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
39:59.104 --> 40:04.728
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah wanted to die because of despair, but Jesus died to destroy despair.
40:05.838 --> 40:06.439
[SPEAKER_01]: What grace?
40:07.179 --> 40:15.145
[SPEAKER_01]: Elijah was fed for his journey by the grace of God, but Jesus becomes the bread of life for us that we feed on forevermore.
40:17.407 --> 40:29.036
[SPEAKER_01]: And Elijah thought he was alone, but Jesus was forsaken so that we would never be alone, never alone, never alone.
40:33.358 --> 40:37.521
[SPEAKER_01]: The whispers of God's grace is still communicating to us this morning.
40:38.021 --> 40:40.203
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are weary and well-doing.
40:41.744 --> 40:45.326
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you've seen God move and people still haven't changed.
40:46.968 --> 40:50.050
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you've seen God move and you still have changed.
40:51.891 --> 40:57.055
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you serve faithfully and were threatened ignored on misstreated because of it.
40:58.427 --> 41:05.332
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you have literal enemies, not metaphorical literal enemies.
41:05.852 --> 41:27.947
[SPEAKER_01]: For doing what was cold of you by God's word, maybe you are tired after doing something that was right for giving, for sharing, for doing justice, for saying the hard things to hard people here from the Lord this morning, not me,
41:29.767 --> 41:34.510
[SPEAKER_01]: Eat, rest, listen, you are not alone.
41:35.431 --> 41:37.532
[SPEAKER_01]: God still has purpose for you.
41:39.414 --> 41:43.336
[SPEAKER_01]: And just because the crowd ignored the fire, doesn't mean God stops speaking.
41:43.356 --> 41:47.119
[SPEAKER_01]: God ain't intimidated by these silent folks cutting up and leading in today's sin.
41:51.082 --> 41:52.543
[SPEAKER_01]: Not impressed with them tantrums.
41:56.083 --> 41:59.724
[SPEAKER_01]: So this morning, move while the Seaman is still wet.
42:01.545 --> 42:07.747
[SPEAKER_01]: Receive God as God gives Himself to us and stop demanding that God show up the way we want God to show up.
42:09.368 --> 42:16.770
[SPEAKER_01]: And live whisper, ready, silence, the foolishness, and live whisper, ready.
42:18.451 --> 42:22.752
[SPEAKER_01]: Because our God spoke to Elijah and our God is still speaking to us now.
42:23.192 --> 42:23.533
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.