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Men, well tonight I'm going to be continuing with Elijah, this is part four on Elijah, but before I kind of wrap up with the end of Elijah's life, other than the story about him being caught up, you know, by the whirlwind into heaven, I'm not going into that tonight, but I want to finish all of his ministry and life leading up to that point. I want to first just kind of give an overview of his entire life, so a little bit of review, but really just a few little things that we skipped as well, just because sometimes it's good to kind of take a step back and get the big picture and see all of the life of Elijah. So if you want to kind of follow along in your Bible a little bit, it's only going to take a couple minutes, but I just want to touch on a few things and then get into the new material. But of course we're introduced to Elijah in chapter 17 of 1 Kings, if you want to turn back to 1 Kings, we're going to end up in 2 Kings chapter 1 in a moment, but in 1 Kings chapter 17, we're introduced to Elijah the Tishbite, and he sort of just pops up out of nowhere, and he shows up and he makes this pronouncement that it's not going to rain for the next three years except by his word, implying of course that he has the power to make it rain once again, and then he goes into hiding, God has him dwelling out in the wilderness, the ravens are bringing his food to him, then the brook dries up and he ends up leaving the nation of Israel and going into a foreign country, into Zarephath in Zidon, just north of Israel, which is sort of the seat of Baal worship, and it's actually Jezebel's hometown, and so he's going up there and he stays with the widow woman, and while he's there, two miracles take place. First of all, when he shows up there, the woman is just about to run out of food, the barrel of meal is almost completely empty, but of course God multiplies it so that every time they go back to make more, there's always a little bit more meal in the barrel, there's a lot, always a little bit more oil in the cruise, and so they're able to get through the famine that way, and it's a miracle obviously, similar to Jesus feeding the 5,000 or something like that. Then of course, the woman's son dies and Elijah brings her son back to life. Then after three and a half years of the famine, Elijah comes back into the nation of Israel and he goes to confront Ahab and he sets up this showdown with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, and of course he calls down fire from God and the sacrifice is burnt up and consumed and the children of Israel are amazed and they declare the Lord to be the true God, but of course this doesn't solve all of the country's problems, this doesn't solve Elijah's problems, Jezebel is still after him and there's a death warrant placed upon him, of course right after the showdown, he does pray to the Lord and it does rain, and he outruns the chariot back when he tells Ahab to head back to Samaria, and then we get into the material that we saw this morning, and so I'm definitely not going to rehash what we talked about this morning, but this morning we basically just talked about how Elijah went out into the wilderness, he's depressed, he wants to die, he goes out in the wilderness, he goes to the cave at Mount Sinai, he comes back, and then he anoints Elisha to be his successor, to be the next prophet after him, so he's going to train Elijah and have him as a protege, okay. So then, when we get to chapter 1, that he fometh again, and bruising him hardly departed from him, and I besought thy disciples to cast him out and they could not, and Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you? Bring thy son hither, and as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down and tare him, and Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the child and delivered him again to his father, and they were all amazed at the mighty power of God, but while they wondered everyone at all things which Jesus did, he said unto his disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears, for the son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men, but they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them that they perceived it not, and they feared to ask him of that saying. Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest, and Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child and set him by him, and said unto them, Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me, and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me, for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great. And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us. And it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face, and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned and rebuked them, and said, He know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village, and it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Father in heaven, thank you for your church, and thank you for the blood of your son Jesus Christ, by which the believer has eternal life. Please bless Pastor Anderson with the fullness and the power of the Holy Ghost as he preaches your word, and help us, your children, learn and do your word by your grace. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Men, well tonight I'm going to be continuing with Elijah, this is part four on Elijah. But before I kind of wrap up with the end of Elijah's life, other than the story about him being caught up, you know, by the whirlwind into heaven, I'm not going into that tonight, but I want to finish all of his ministry and life leading up to that point. I want to first just kind of give an overview of his entire life. A little bit of review, but really just a few little things that we skipped as well. Just because sometimes it's good to kind of take a step back and get the big picture and see all of the life of Elijah. So if you want to kind of follow along in your Bible a little bit, it's only going to take a couple minutes, but I just want to touch on a few things and then get into the new material. But of course we're introduced to Elijah in chapter 17 of 1 Kings, if you want to turn back to 1 Kings, we're going to end up in 2 Kings chapter 1 in a moment. But in 1 Kings chapter 17, we're introduced to Elijah the Tishbite and he sort of just pops up out of nowhere and he shows up and he makes this pronouncement that it's not going to rain for the next three years except by his word, implying of course that he has the power to make it rain once again. And then he goes into hiding, God has him dwelling out in the wilderness, the ravens are bringing his food to him. Then the brook dries up and he ends up leaving the nation of Israel and going into a foreign country into Zarephath in Zidon, just north of Israel, which is sort of the seat of Baal worship and it's actually Jezebel's hometown. And so he's going up there and he stays with the widow woman and while he's there two miracles take place. First of all, when he shows up there, the woman is just about to run out of food. The barrel of meal is almost completely empty, but of course God multiplies it so that every time they go back to make more, there's always a little bit more meal in the barrel. There's always a little bit more oil in the cruise and so they're able to get through the famine that way and it's a miracle obviously, similar to Jesus feeding the 5,000 or something like that. Then of course the woman's son dies and Elijah brings her son back to life. Then after three and a half years of the famine, Elijah comes back into the nation of Israel and he goes to confront Ahab and he sets up this showdown with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel and of course he calls down fire from God and the sacrifice is burnt up and consumed and the children of Israel are amazed and they declare the Lord to be the true God. But of course this doesn't solve all of the country's problems, this doesn't solve Elijah's problems. Jezebel is still after him and there's a death warrant placed upon him. Of course right after the showdown, he does pray to the Lord and it does rain and he outruns the chariot back when he tells Ahab to head back to Samaria and then we get into the material that we saw this morning and so I'm definitely not going to rehash what we talked about this morning but this morning we basically just talked about how Elijah went out into the wilderness, he's depressed, he wants to die. He goes out in the wilderness, he goes to the cave at Mount Sinai, he comes back and then he anoints Elisha to be his successor, to be the next prophet after him. So he's going to train Elijah and have him as a protege, okay. Well then when we get to chapter 20 if you recall, Elijah isn't mentioned. We have all these other random prophets popping up and confronting Ahab and doing the type of things we would expect Elijah to do but he's not there. These other prophets are doing it instead. Well then when we get to chapter 21, Elijah re-emerges and he confronts Ahab once again and remember Ahab had stolen Naboth's vineyard so he rebukes Ahab and he predicts that his children are going to be destroyed and that his wife is going to be eaten by dogs, Jezebel is going to be eaten by dogs and so forth. And then in chapter 2 we have another story that's unrelated to Elijah. So that's really it up to this point. You know we've got his three and a half years at the brook and with the widow, a couple miracles right, we've got him calling down fire from God, praying for it to rain once again, it rains, getting depressed, going out in the wilderness, going to Mount Sinai, coming back, anointing Elisha, confronting Ahab one more time, that's pretty much the summary of what he has done up to this point. When he confronts Ahab I'm not going to belabor that because we already talked about that very recently in a sermon where I talked about Naboth's vineyard and all that. But he just rebukes Ahab and Ahab actually repents and gets right with God and so God shows a little bit of mercy on Ahab in that story. So that brings us to 2 Kings chapter 1. And that's what I'm going to preach on tonight, 2 Kings chapter 1 and in chapter 2 we're going to see Elijah actually caught up to the Lord in the whirlwind so that's the end of Elijah's life on this earth. So chapter 1 is pretty much the final scene in his life besides his actual departure from this world. So look if you would at 2 Kings chapter 1 verse 1 it says, then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab and Ahaziah, now Ahaziah is the son of Ahab who takes over after Ahab dies. Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria and was sick. And he sent messengers and said to them, go inquire of Baal-Zebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. Now notice the similarity with the New Testament word Beelzebub that we're all pretty familiar with as being a name of Satan. When Jesus talked about Satan casting out Satan he talked about Beelzebub and he used those interchangeably. Well we're all familiar with Baal being the false god that the Israelites are constantly being told not to worship but there are different Baals. There's like a Baal-Ekron, a Baal-Ashdod, Baal-Zebub, different Baals because these people are polytheistic. The worshipers of Baal, they're not worshiping a single deity, they're polytheists. And so they have a bunch of gods, a bunch of different Baals, and a bunch of different Ashtoras as well, female goddesses. And so these people are sent to inquire of a specific Baal called Baal-Zebub. And eventually this particular Baal becomes synonymous with the devil, with Satan. But in reality all of these different Baals that they're worshiping in the Old Testament, all these false gods and goddesses are literally demons. They are devils, okay. This is why in 1 Corinthians the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said that the things which the Gentiles offer in sacrifice unto idols, they sacrifice unto devils. So it's not that the idol is anything, it's just wood, stone, metal, it's not something that actually breeds or has life. But yet what it represents is real because it represents a devil that is real. And so when he is saying, go inquire of Baal-Zebub, go inquire of this false god, this is tantamount to saying, you know, go inquire of Satan instead of inquiring of the Lord. He's sending him to a foreign country, leave Israel, go to this other place, right, Ekron, which is part of the land of the Philistines, modern day Gaza Strip, and inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron. And so it says in verse 3, but the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say unto them, is it not because there's not a god in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? So Elijah is basically told to intercept the messengers that are being sent to go on this long journey to the land of the Philistines and go inquire of this false god at some oracle of that god. You know, Elijah just stops them and says, wait a minute, you know, what are you doing going to ask Baal-Zebub, is there no god in Israel? Like why don't you inquire of the Lord? Is it because there's just no god in Israel that you have to go to the Philistines and inquire of their false god? Now therefore, verse 4, thus saith the Lord, thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die and Elijah departed. So he's basically saving them a trip saying, you guys don't need to go on a trip, go back and tell him he's going to surely die because he wanted to ask, am I going to recover? And Elijah just tells them, well, you know, you got a god right here, the true god, the living god, Jehovah god, and he says you're going to die. One thing that's interesting though is that it says in verse 4, now therefore thus saith the Lord, thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. The therefore means that him dying is a result of the fact that he doesn't think there's a god in Israel, so he's got to go to Baal-Zebub to ask. It's the following after false gods that has caused his life to be cut short in the first place. And this guy only reigns for two years, by the way, because if you just back up to the very end of first Kings chapter 22 verse 52, it says he did evil in the sight of the Lord. And it says in verse 53, he served Baal and worshiped him and provoked to anger the Lord God of Israel, according to all that his father had done. And that's why at the end of verse 51 there, it says he reigned how long? Two years over Israel. That's not a very good reign. Even his dad, King Ahab, reigned a lot longer than that. And so this is a punishment from God for not seeking the Lord, not looking to the Word of God for answers, not going to the Bible and finding out the answers, but going to the devil and finding the answers from false religion, false gods, psychics, soothsayers, whatever the wrong, wicked source of occult knowledge that he's searching for. And so this is a punishment that's going to happen. So the messengers, they turn around and they go back in verse five, he said to them, why are you now turned back? Like, wait a minute. I sent you guys to Ekron. Why are you guys already back? It's been like an hour. What's going on? And they said unto him, well, there came a man up to meet us. They don't even know who Elijah is. Some guy met us, they're saying, and said unto us, go turn again unto the King that sent you and say unto him, thus saith the Lord. Is it not because there's not a God in Israel that thou sendest to inquire of Baal Zebub, the God of Ekron? Therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shall surely die. And he said unto them, what manner of man was he which came up to meet you and told you these words? You know, what, what, what did he look like? What was he like? And they answered him, he was a hairy man. And girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. You know, this rough guy, he's got the hairiness, he's got the leather girdle about his loins. Now, here's one of the stupidest things that I've heard throughout my life. And you'll hear this all the time from the unlearned. They say, oh, you know, Elijah preached in a loincloth. John the Baptist went around in a loincloth. Now look, John the Baptist is not some bone in the nose, ooga booga guy out in the wilderness wearing a loincloth running around naked, okay? Now hang on one second here. Let me grab some of these wrong Bible versions here. You know, I don't know, where's this, can you guys look this up, where's this stupid loincloth stuff coming from? See, see what it says in there? But here's the thing. If somebody says, hey, he's a hairy man and he's girded with a leather girdle, let me just explain something to you. That's not, that's not the only thing he's wearing. You know, if somebody had a really standout belt or a really standout girdle and you're trying to identify them and it's like, he's a really hairy guy and he's got this really gnarly belt, it's not saying, hey, he's wearing just a belt, it's ridiculous, it's absurd. This is just one of the garments that he's wearing. And then John the Baptist, who is like a New Testament version of Elijah, when he shows up he's described in much the same way, but it says he's clothed in camel's hair and he's got a leather girdle about his loins and his meat was locust and wild honey. So he's got clothes on and he's got the leather belt. That should kind of go without saying. Let me know if you find it, guys. Otherwise I'm going to let, I'm going to use you guys for Luke chapter nine if you want to go there next. Luke 9 56, we're going to go next. But see if you can find that stupidity in kings if you can. That's your assignment there in the front row. And so Elijah is a hairy man. Now remember what we know about Elijah, you know, he spent time in the wilderness. He spent time outside. He's a tough guy. Now in that overview of his ministry, you can see he's preached some pretty hard sermons. He's preached a lot of rough things. He's a hard preaching guy. He's not a soft guy at all. And at the very end of his life, he hasn't gone soft whatsoever. And if you think he might have gone soft, well, let's just keep reading and you're going to see that he has not gone soft, because it says in verse nine, so once he figures out this is Elijah the Tishbite in verse eight, in verse nine, it says, then the king sent unto him a captain of 50 with his 50 and he went up to him and behold, he sat on the top of a hill and he spake unto him, thou man of God, the king has said, come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of 50, if I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy 50. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his 50. So here the king sends these 50 soldiers to apprehend Elijah. Elijah's already sent the message. He already told him what's going to happen. He's done. He's coming back to living in the mountain and these soldiers are sent to arrest him. Okay, that's what we need to understand about the context here. He is under arrest. These guys are coming to by force arrest him, to detain him, and they show up and the irony here is that they call him man of God. And he's basically saying, you know, if I'm a man of God, then why are you following this wicked king and coming to arrest me? You're going to arrest me, a man of God, because you got orders from your Baal worshiping evil king. Well, okay. Oh, you guys think I'm a man of God? Well, if I'm a man of God, then you might have heard a story about me calling down fire from God earlier in my ministry. And so how about if I'm a man of God, how about fire comes down from God and consumes you and your 50? And so he just calls down fire from God and just torches these 50 guys. They just get smoked, okay. So they don't come back. And so the king is wondering like, you know, what's the deal? Nobody's coming back. Did you guys find the loincloth or what? He says he wore a garment of hair. Okay. Yeah, I think it might, it's probably not even from a wrong Bible version. It's probably just from bozos who just, they have a weird mind or something and they read the Bible and they get these weird ideas cause they're, they're, they're weird. But anyway, and so these guys, they don't come back. The 50 soldiers don't come back. And so he says, all right, let's send another 50. Go find Elijah, put them under arrest, bring him back. So another captain comes with his 50 messengers and he shows up and at the end of verse 11 he says, oh man of God does as the king said, come down quickly. So we've got one word added here. Come down right now. Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said to them, if I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy 50. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. So that is basically 102 corpses here, all burnt up. And he sent again a captain of the third 50 with his 50. When these guys don't come back, he sends out another posse to go get Elijah. And the third captain of 50 went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah. This guy has a little bit better of an approach cause he probably shows up, he sees 102 burnt up soldiers and he's starting to get the picture here. Maybe I need to try a different approach. And so he shows up and he falls on his knees before Elijah and besought him and said unto him, oh man of God, I pray thee, let my life and the life of these 50 thy servants be precious in thy sight. Behold there came down fire from heaven and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties. Therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. Like just please do not torch me like you did these other guys, okay. Now what do we make of this? You know what's going on in this story? Well part of what we see here is that God is able to protect preachers of the word of God from worldly persecution. If he so chooses to do, God can protect them from prison or death or persecution that the world will bring. You know, no weapon that is formed against us will prosper unless it's God's will that we be one of those rare people that is a martyr for the Lord Jesus Christ, which is not the norm but is more of a rarity most of the time. God protects those who preach his word, that speak his word, and he has put them above kings and rulers. For example, at the beginning of the book of Jeremiah, and if you would keep your finger here and flip over to Jeremiah so you can see this. God tells Jeremiah that he has been set over kingdoms. And in the book of Psalms, the Bible says that God reproved kings for the sakes of prophets in the Bible like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm. The context of that famous verse, touch not mine anointed and do my prophet no harm, right before they said he reproved kings for their sake. You know, God does not look down and just get super impressed with secular governments and worldly authority and presidents and kings and prime minister. Those things mean nothing to God. In fact, God says in Isaiah chapter 40 that those things are accounted as less than nothing before him and lighter than vanity. They're totally meaningless. God is not a respecter of persons. He doesn't care. And he's not going to allow Isaiah to manhandle Elijah to arrest Elijah to put Elijah in prison or to death. No, he defends the man of God by torching that posse twice in a row. In Jeremiah chapter one, Jeremiah is being called into the ministry. And it says in verse 10, See, I have set the I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms. You see that? God's word is supreme. God's law is supreme. The Bible says, Let every soul be separate under the higher powers. And the highest power is God. Okay, the law of God trumps any human law. You know, against God's word, there is no law against such there is no law, the fruit of the Spirit is transcends God's law. Okay. So prophets, men of God, pastors are not supposed to be under the authority of the government when it comes to their spiritual mission. Okay, so the government should not be able to arrest me because of what I preach or what I say. And thankfully, in the United States of America, I can get up here and I can say whatever I want. I can preach whatever I want, and I've tried it. Okay, I can preach whatever I want for the Bible. It can be completely offensive to this wicked world. And you know what, it's totally 100% legal. That's the way it should be. But sadly, that's not how it is necessarily in Canada. That's not necessarily how it is in places like Germany, or other parts of Europe, England, South Africa, you know, where they don't have the same free speech that we have. And thank God that we live in America and have that free speech where I can get up and preach whatever God lays on my heart, I don't have to worry about prison or being arrested or 50 Phoenix PD coming down here, because I don't want to have to smoke anybody. No, I'm just kidding. I don't have that blessing. But the point is that we have that liberty. But the sad thing is, you've got 6000 plus King James only independent fundamental Baptists in America, and so few of them are even using their right to get up and preach the Word of God boldly, while we can, folks, while we've got the opportunity, we need to cry loud and spare not and preach against the sins of America. We need to do it while we can. It's so sad that there's just a handful that are even using their liberty to the fullest potential to get up and preach hard against the sins of our nation. And you know what Elijah represents for me in the Bible, hard preaching, the hairy preacher, the hairy man. And let me tell you something, we need Elijah's in this world right now. We need John the Baptist in this world right now. And look, there are all kinds of different members of the body of Christ. And everybody has a role to play in the church, man, woman, boy and girl. But you know, we also need some hair-legged men of God to get up and rip face and preach hard on sin and rebuke the wickedness of our day, and not be these soft, self-censoring, self-serving charlatans, okay, that just get up behind the pulpit and basically just preach the parts of the Bible that they want to preach. Why, you know, we're commanded to preach the whole thing. We don't get to pick and choose what people are going to like. We need to preach the entire Bible. And so it's sad today that because so few pastors take advantage of this wonderful liberty that we have in the United States, a lot of people are under this delusion thinking that it's illegal to preach certain things, when in reality we have freedom of speech in America, freedom of religion, we can preach anything in the Bible with zero repercussions legally. Yeah, Facebook or YouTube or Twitter might punish us. Go to Facebook jail, but you're not going to go to jail jail, okay, I'd much rather spend 30 days in Facebook jail than 30 days in the who's cow, all right? So God has set us over nations, over kingdoms, to root out, to pull down, to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant. We need some pastors and preachers that would be like a Jeremiah or an Elijah that would stand up for what's right. And those are the kind of churches that we also need to be attending and joining and supporting as well. The churches that are pastored by actual preachers who want to preach everything in the Bible and not be soft, okay? God has called us to be a hairy man spiritually. Now you know, hey, I understand some people are physically smooth and they can still be hairy in spirit. Blessed are the hairy in spirit, amen? But the point is, you know, hey, it's not about literal hair, okay? But sometimes it might be, all right? But anyway, all right, I digress. So he is met by the third captain of 50, he gets on his knees, he asks for mercy, and then it says in verse 15, and this is a key verse to understanding the story, in verse 15 it says, the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, go down with him, and look at the next phrase, this is important, be not afraid of him. So what we need to understand is that the first two sets of troops were coming to do him harm. They were coming to arrest him, maybe torture him, maybe kill him. They were coming to harm him. Why? Because now this third time, he's specifically told by God, don't be afraid of him, go with him, it's going to be fine, meaning that there was something to fear, or there would be something to fear, or Elijah would have thought there's something to fear. That's why he needs to be told fear not, because there is fear here. And obviously, Elijah isn't just some kind of a guy who just calls down the fire of God whenever he wants or something. Obviously this has to be God's will. God is not some genie where you just learn how to use his powers or something. This isn't some kind of sorcery here, but rather it's God's will that he called down fire and consumed that verse 50, or it wouldn't have happened. If this wasn't God's plan, if this wasn't God's will, God's not just up in heaven like, would you quit using the power I gave you to just torch entire armies? Obviously he's in God's will, he's following God's leading, he's doing right, he's defending himself, he's fighting against this evil army that's coming to apprehend him, he's all by himself, he doesn't have the weapons or the skill to fight these guys, and so he torches them through the power of God so that the third group would be humble and actually just escort him to go see the king, not bind him and afflict him, and who knows what to him. So God is softening up these military men and the king by torching 102 guys. That'll kind of soften things up a little bit for you Elijah. Does everybody see that important point? That the third time specifically the angel of the Lord tells Elijah, go down with him, be not afraid of him. He's not given that assurance about the first group, he's not given that assurance about the second group, but rather he is led to call down fire from God and destroy them and God obliges him. And obviously God would not just allow that kind of power to be wielded in an untoward way. Okay, so I want to make sure you get that because we're going to go to the New Testament in a moment and see the connection here. Okay so in verse 16 it says, he said unto him, or sorry verse 15, let's finish it, go down with him, be not afraid of him, and he arose and went down with him unto the king. So he goes down with the king and he said unto him, thus saith the Lord. Here's what Elijah tells the king, for as much as thou hast sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, is it not because there's no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. What is the point of this whole meeting? Because did he not just say exactly what he already told the messengers, the messengers already told him this, and so now 102 people die. He has to come down, go tell, okay now let me tell you exactly the same thing that I already said. Okay bye. And then he dies according to the word of the Lord. The Bible says in verse 17, so he died according to the word of the Lord, which Elijah had spoken and Jehoram reigned in his stead. And that's it, that's the end of the story here. Now here's the thing about this, is that God's word doesn't change. And so we don't need to change the message because of who we're giving the message to. If we're talking to some peon messenger, or if we're talking to the king of Israel himself, it's the same message. It doesn't change, it's not like, oh well you're President Joe Biden, let me just change everything if you're about my message. No, it's the same message. You know if I'm prepared to preach on Sunday morning, it doesn't matter who walks through that door, the same message is going to go forth. On Sunday night, it doesn't matter who walks in, I'll go, oh look, it's Governor Doug Ducey's here. Well I better change my whole sermon. No, it's the same message. The message doesn't change. It's so funny when people, they hear the word of God, and they don't want to accept it, so they want to shop around for a different message. Or find some pastor that will tell them what they want to hear. You know it sort of reminds me of the story of Balaam, where he tells them, you know, look God doesn't want me to curse Israel. He tells that to Balak, and then he's like, okay well let me take you to this other place where you can kind of look at them from another angle, and maybe God will let you curse them from this other angle. Like what, what does that even matter? And then he, you know, again, he's not able to curse them. So it's like, oh, well let me take you to another spot, and maybe you can curse them from over here. Like what does geography have to do with any of this? It doesn't. But God puts things in the Bible like that just to show the stupidity of people who just will not accept the word of God for face value, and so they find, they want to all find a different angle. Right? Well maybe if we just approach Leviticus 20-13 from a different angle, it's going to say something different. Maybe, well let's just look at Romans 1 from over here at this angle. Folks, it doesn't matter, it's the same word of God, thus saith the Lord, and it doesn't change because you don't like it. Tough! And it doesn't matter who the audience is, tough. It's the same message, it's the same word of God. Now go if you would to Luke chapter 9. In Luke chapter 9 we have reference made to this story. Now Luke chapter 9 actually mentioned Elijah three different times. If you noticed as we read the chapter before the sermon began, there were three mentions of Elijah. And like I said, Elijah is a very significant character, so he's mentioned many times in the New Testament. He's mentioned about 30 times by name, Jesus mentions him a lot, he's mentioned in Paul's epistles, Epistle of James, James chapter 5, we saw in Romans chapter 11 this morning, 1 Kings 19 was quoted, and so Elijah is a very significant character. Well in chapter 9, one of the times that we see Elijah mentioned is when they ask, or when they think that Jesus is the second coming of Elijah. Now stop and think about this for a minute. The people that are hearing Jesus and seeing Jesus and hearing rumors about Jesus, the word on the street, the buzz surrounding Jesus is, man this guy is like another Elijah, he's like Elijah come back from the dead. So let me ask you this, does it sound like Jesus is a really soft preacher, a really smooth man wearing soft clothing? Because why would he be compared with this rough neck from the Old Testament, one of the roughest, and also they say, well some say that you're Jeremiah, that's another very rough preacher. So he's being compared to this hairy man of the Old Testament, Elijah, who preached very hard, and they're saying, well a lot of people are saying you're Elijah. The disciples say, hey people think you're Elias, people think that you're Elijah. So the fact that Jesus is being compared to Elijah shows that Jesus has a lot in common with Elijah, meaning that Jesus is preaching some hard sermons. That's what we see. Obviously there's the miraculous element of multiplying food and raising the dead and so forth, but also the hard preaching is what John the Baptist and Elijah had in common and what Jesus and Elijah had in common. And so John the Baptist, you know, came in the power and spirit of Elijah. Jesus said this is Elijah that was for to come, but then people are even comparing Jesus himself to Elijah, or one of the prophets. One of these hard preaching roughnecks from the Old Testament. And here's the thing, Jesus also, when he got the messengers from John the Baptist in Matthew chapter 11, when he sends them away he says, you know, what went you out of the wilderness to see? You know, when you went to hear John the Baptist preach, what did you go out of the wilderness to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? And here's what Jesus said, you know, they that wear soft clothing are in King's palaces. They that wear soft clothing are in King's palaces. Now why didn't Jesus say, well those that wear soft clothing, well that's me. What did you go out to find in the wilderness? A man clothed in soft raiment? That's me. I'm the guy in the soft clothing. Is that what he said? Now he said they that wear soft clothing are in King's palaces. Jesus was not this soft, smooth, soft clothing guy, I mean Jesus was manly. Which makes sense because men are supposed to be manly and women are supposed to be feminine. Only in our gender neutral, gender bending, non-binary weirdo decade are now men not held to a standard of, hey, being manly. Women are supposed to be masculine and I promise you that Jesus Christ, the perfect man was masculine, okay? He was masculine. He was not effeminate. And any depiction of Jesus as soft or effeminate is a blasphemous depiction of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's blasphemous, it's insulting. I'm insulted when I see a picture of Jesus looking effeminate. First of all, I don't want to see any picture of Jesus because I want to get to know Jesus the way God intended, which is by reading the word of God and hearing the preaching of God's word. We're not to learn about Jesus through images. We do not have images of Christ and images of Mary and things like that because we're not Roman Catholic. We're not pagan idolaters, okay? But if you're going to have a picture of Jesus, why would you have a picture of Jesus looking effeminate? I'm implying that Jesus is a sinner because effeminacy is a sin according to scripture. First Corinthians 6 chapter 9, chapter 6 verse 9 lists the effeminate in a list of sinful people of this world, the effeminate, okay? And so Jesus is not a sinner, Jesus is not effeminate and if Jesus were a soft man clothed in soft raiment, he wouldn't be compared to Elijah and he would have used himself as an example instead of saying, well, those kind of guys are in king's palaces, these dandies, you know. But anyway, so Luke chapter 9, here's a story that alludes to what we just read. It says in verse 51 of Luke chapter 9, and it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. And so it's important for Jesus to get to Jerusalem and one of the thematic elements in the book of Luke is that there's just this constant mention of Jesus going toward Jerusalem. He's on this journey to Jerusalem, he's on this road to Jerusalem. Chapter after chapter after chapter that's brought up in the Gospel of Luke, like he's on his way to Jerusalem, he's going to Jerusalem, he's got to get to Jerusalem. Because it's important for him to fulfill prophecy and be crucified at Jerusalem. He had to die at Jerusalem as part of the prophecy. And so he's got his face set to go up to Jerusalem, he's going there to die on the cross. That's why he's going there. And sent messengers before his base, verse 52, and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him because he sends them ahead to prepare a place and let them go, hey Jesus is coming. And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. So the Samaritans would have received Jesus, but when they hear that they're just a stop on the way to Jerusalem, they're offended by that because they don't like the Jews, they don't like Jerusalem, the Samaritans and the Jews have no dealings with one another, they don't like each other. And so it's like, oh well if you're going to Jerusalem, then you're not welcome here. So they're more loyal to their little tribal differences here instead of just receiving the Lord Jesus Christ, they let that get in the way. The fact that we're Samaritans and, you know, if he's going to Jerusalem we don't want anything to do with that. So they reject Christ because he's heading for Jerusalem. Because it says they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem and they basically didn't like that, okay? Verse 54, and when his disciples, James and John, saw this they said, Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elias did? So James and John knew this Bible story that we're learning about tonight, about Elijah calling down the fire and torching the 50s, okay? And so they said, hey Jesus, I've got an idea, maybe we can call down fire from God and just burn this village to the ground. But he turned, even as Elijah did, right, at the end of verse 54, even as Elias did, that's a New Testament spelling of Elijah. But he turned and rebuked them and said, ye know not what manner of spirit you're of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. And they went to another village and said, I'm not here to destroy people, I'm not here to bring judgment, I'm here to get people saved. Now here's the thing about that. A lot of people will take something like this in the Bible and twist it to try to pit the Old Testament God against the New Testament God, or to pit God the Father against Jesus, you know, God the Father is the mean God that's just like, yeah, let's burn them up, and then Jesus is like, oh no, no, let's not do it. The real answer is that this is a totally different situation. Are the Samaritans coming to arrest the disciples and torture them and kill them or something? No, the Samaritans just don't want to hear the Gospel. And so here's the thing, when we're out soul winning, when we're out evangelizing, when we're out bringing the Gospel to the lost, we need to understand that those people are not our enemies, and we need to go to them, not in a spirit of judgment and condemnation, they're condemned already. We're not there to judge them, we're not there to condemn them, we're not there to destroy them, we are there out of love to save them. And if the Samaritans don't receive Jesus into their village, it's no skin off Jesus back, it's no skin off the disciples back, it's themselves that they're hurting by not allowing Jesus to come and preach and speak to them and stay with them. They're hurting themselves. Guess what? When you go out soul winning and somebody slams the door in your face, that's on them. Don't take it personally. They're not hurting you. All you do is move to the next door. You just walk away, no big deal, okay? Jesus Christ is not saying what Elijah did is wrong, what God did is wrong there. That's absurd. What Jesus is explaining is that we're here to reach people. We're not here to destroy an enemy. I mean, look, David chopped off Goliath's head. That was appropriate in that situation. That's what needed to happen. But John and James and Peter, they're not called to go around chopping people's heads off. That's not what they're called to do. That's what David was called to do in that one situation when he killed Goliath. And so we need to understand that soul winning is about reaching people, blessing people. It's not about condemning and judging people, okay? Because they're already condemned and, you know, judgment takes place in the house of God, but we don't necessarily need to go out there and just right every wrong in the world because that's a fool's errand because the world's always going to be wicked. You're not going to fix it. You're not going to change it. You know, you get these bozos that their form of evangelism is to just go out and rebuke drunks coming out of a bar or rebuke some sodomite parade or rebuke an abortion clinic. And here's the thing. Hey, I'm glad somebody is rebuking people that need to be rebuked in some situations. But here's the thing about that though. That's not evangelism. That's not preaching the good news. That's not preaching the gospel. Okay. There is a place for that. There's a place for rebuking abortion. There's a place for rebuking the sodomites. There's a place for rebuking drunkenness. But you know what, going out there and just yelling at people in the street, it's not effective. They don't care. They're not listening. It doesn't make any sense. And you know, really, you're just making yourself look stupid when you just go stand on the street and you're yelling and preaching and nobody's even listening. I'm up here yelling and preaching. There are hundreds of people listening. This is church. This is appropriate. When I go out there, I'm going to walk up to people one on one. I'm going to reason with them and talk to them and I'm going to bring them the good news because that's really the message that they need. Okay. And by the way, you know, my heart preaching against the sodomites, it's not for the sodomites. I have nothing to say to the sodomites. Okay. I'm preaching that for the people for whom it is not too late. Okay. And it's sort of like, you know, those first couple fifties getting torched. It's not really for them. If I be a man of God, well then let fire come down from God and consume you and your fifty. That saying didn't, it didn't really matter if he said that to them or not. He could have just went like. But you know what that message was for and you know what that slaughter was for? It was for the third group so that they could get right. You know, so, you know, when we're verbally torching these, you know, we're actually trying to reach the people for whom it's not too late. Group three as it were. And so, you know, one of my kids brought this up to me this week about these street preachers. You know, these street preachers and they're real obnoxious and they're just yelling at no one in particular. They'll literally go on a street corner, there's no audience and they're just yelling at cars that are going by, yelling at people that are walking by and they think that's how they're going to evangelize. And of course they get very little results if any. A lot of times the results are zero, maybe very little results. We go out knocking doors and we have abundant results. We are constantly getting people saved on a weekly basis, yea on a daily basis at Faith Forward Baptist Church. We have people out there knocking doors, we're constantly getting people saved. But you know one of my kids brought up an interesting point about how in the book of Acts, you've got the Apostle Paul being followed around by this demoniac girl. And basically everything she says is right. She's saying, you know, these men are prophets of the Most High God, these guys are telling you the way of righteousness. These guys, you know, I'm not quoting it exactly, but what she's saying is accurate. She's basically promoting the apostles and telling the truth and yelling these things. But basically Paul is just so irritated and has to cast the devil out of this girl just to shut her up because they're all so vexed by her, just following them around, yelling about how this is the gospel, but yelling it apropos of nothing. She's a demoniac. Why? Because going around and just screaming even a right message, screaming it in the wrong place at the wrong time apropos of nothing, is not helping the work of Christ go forward. And in fact you're just making Christianity look stupid often, just being out there like a maniac, screaming at no one in particular, that's not how you share the gospel. Does everybody see what I'm saying? So you don't want to be like that demoniac girl, Hey, Jesus saves the end is near. You know, it's like, no, come out of her thou unclean spirit. That's all I want. You know, some of these street preachers are so obnoxious and annoying and they give Christ a bad name. They're not helping. They're hindering. But you know, it's like a chest pounding thing like, yeah, you know, we get out there and, you know, confront these sinners and yell at them and it's like, I'm not interested in just getting in some kind of a shouting match with sinners. I'm interested in taking my Bible and showing sinners how to be saved. That's the mission. That's the message. That's what James and John are being told. The son of man's not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And so that's how you can apply that today. Now I want to show you just while we're here and I'll close on this point, but I want to show you how the modern versions just completely butcher the Word of God in this passage. So you look down in your Bible at Luke chapter 9 verses 55, 56, okay, everybody there, Luke 9, 55, but he turned and rebuked them and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. Amen. Okay, now let's read this in the NIV. Would you read it, Daniel? This is the ESV. ESV, okay. But he turned and rebuked them and they went on into another village. So he skipped all that. But he turned and rebuked them and they went to another village. That's the ESV. Now look how much is missing. So here's what's missing. And said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. All missing. Because all they basically have essentially in the ESV is just he turned and rebuked them and they went to another village. Does everybody see that? You want to read the NIV, the non-inspired version? But Jesus turned and rebuked them and they went to another village. Same thing. And you go through the modern versions, this is what you have. So when we talk about 16 entire verses being removed from the New Testament, this isn't even one of them. This doesn't even count toward that number. But this is like tantamount removing like a verse and a half. Because of the amount of content. So even this, not only are there 16 entire verses removed, there are also such large chunks of verses removed that it's like a full verse practically being removed or even two or something. But think about what you're missing when you read this. Hey, should we call down fire from God like Elias did? And he just turns and rebukes them and they go to another village. But there's no explanation given. There's no teaching of why what they proposed is wrong. Why is what they suggested wrong? What is the rationale? In the King James Bible, you get this powerful, important teaching. But not only that, this is a pattern with the modern versions, because they also leave out a verse in Matthew where Jesus, the whole verse, I want to say it's Matthew 17, 21. But don't quote me on that. But where Jesus says, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Gone. So isn't it interesting that Matthew 17, 21, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost, gone. And then in Luke, again, he came not to destroy men's lives, but to save men's lives. It's again, these are verses giving the core mission of Jesus. Why did he come to this earth? To save us, right? That's so important. Is it Matthew 17, 21? Yeah, Matthew 17, 21. Yeah. So it's a pattern. And you'll notice that the verses that are changed and removed in these modern versions, you know, they're not just random verses, but they're, the changes are systematic. And I'm not saying that the modern versions are the ones necessarily changing it. What it is is that they're translating the Bible from ancient corrupted manuscripts that were trashed centuries ago, that no one used for 1000 years or 1500 years, no one used. And then all of a sudden, they're pulled out by archaeologists of, oh, this is older, this is more accurate. It's old because somebody threw it away. And it just happened to go in a really good trash can. Or just happened to be buried in a place that had the right weather, where it didn't get destroyed or ruined. Folks, the right Bible is the one that's been in continual use. God's Word is being continual use. These modern versions are corruptions of the Word of God, because they're translating an ancient corruption instead of translating the traditional text. The traditional text includes verses 55 and 56. It makes sense. It's edifying. It's helpful. Leaving it out makes the story an enigma. And it doesn't really make any sense. And you're left wondering, well, you know, what's going on, I guess you just figure it out on your own. But Jesus's core mission is so important to come to save. And so when we go out there sowing, we're out there to seek and to save as well. But we still need the Elijah spirit when it comes to standing up against sin, preaching hard in the pulpits of America, where preaching hard is appropriate, in situations where it's appropriate, we need to stand against sin. But when we're dealing with strangers, people that we just met two minutes ago, yeah, we're there to preach the gospel, Christ crucified and nothing else. We're not there to just judge them and condemn them and it just doesn't make any sense. So we need to know what's appropriate in what situation. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for all the teachings that we can learn from the life of Elijah. Lord, help us to take a stand on your word, help us to realize your word never changes. And it's the same for everybody. Lord, help us to love people and rebuke sin when it's necessary and also be ready to share the gospel with a tear in the eye when necessary. And in Jesus's name we pray, amen.