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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature Howard Hendricks, also known as the Prof. For over 50 years he was a professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary. He mentored many Christian leaders, including Chuck Swindoll, Tony Evans, Joseph Stowell, and David Jeremiah. Today, Howard Hendricks presents a study on Elijah in concealment. Chad Walsh wrote an intriguing book entitled Early Christians of the 21st century, in which he placed a burr in my mental saddle with these words. Millions of Christians live in a sentimental haze of vague piety, with soft organ music trembling in the lovely light from stained glass windows. Their religion is a pleasant thing of emotional quivers, divorced from the will, divorced from the intellectual and demanding little except lip service to a few harmless platitudes. I suspect that Satan has called off his attempt to convert people to agnosticism. After all, if a man travels far enough away from Christianity, he's liable to see it in perspective and decide that it is true. It is much safer from Satan's point of view to vaccinate a man with a mild case of Christianity so as to protect him from the real disease. Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing as repulsive as phoniness in the spiritual realm. Conversely, there is nothing as magnetic as reality. How refreshing to study the life of a man who was for real. There is not a shred of phoniness in this man's life and experience. Problems, yes. Phoniness, no. Yesterday we focused our attention upon 1st Kings 17:1, which constitutes an introduction to the life of the prophet. There we saw Elijah in confrontation. This rustic renegade from the rural regions storms into the palace of the king and delivers his ultimatum. He was able to communicate in a generation of spiritual declension because he was convinced of the reality of God. God was a lie. He was convinced that he was God's personal representative to that society and that created responsibility. A responsibility to speak when others were hiding. He was convinced that there were resources adequate and available and the word of God had become his word. He had laid hold of the throne of God in prayer that it might not rain. And it rained. Today we turn to a study of Elijah in concealment. And there is a cause, effect, relationship. You show me an individual who is effective in public, and I will show you an individual who is effective in private. You show me an individual who is communicating with his generation spiritually and I will show you a man who is communicating with his God. We like the assignment of confrontation, but the assignment of concealment is hard to choke down. If you have a Bible and you are taking some notes, may I Encourage you to write four words in the margin of your Bible. These four words unravel the plot in verses two through seven. First of all, I want you to write beside the words 2 and 3, command. Secondly, beside verse 4, promise. Beside verses 5 and 6, response. And beside verse 7, test. The order is both significant and spiritual. A command, a promise, a response, and a test. Let's examine these in detail in verses 2 and 3. Note the command. And the word of the Lord came unto Elijah saying, get thee hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the book, Kirith, that is, before Jordan. Go hide yourself. Hide yourself. Lord, when there's so much to be done and so few people involved in the process of doing it, hide yourself. That's right. Go show thyself. That's easy. Go hide thyself. That's difficult. I'm sure had I been there, I would have remonstrated with the Lord. Lord, are you sure the IBM card is not crumpled? Lord, are you sure your PBX operator does not have the wrong plug in? Lord, I'm a palace man. And you want a palace man to hide himself. That's right. There are many of you listening in over the radio. There are many of you who are students in this audience to whom God is saying incisively, go hide yourself. That's a difficult assignment in a busy world. We are compulsive activists, and there are so many voices clamoring for our attention that it is easy to miss the voice of God in process. I was talking some time ago at a pastor's conference to a man who came to see me for counsel. He had severe problems in his work. I said, pastor, how much time do you spend thinking? Thinking, Hendricks, I don't have any time to think. If I stop to think, I get behind. And this is precisely our dilemma. Julian the apostate during the first century was determined to blot out every trace of Christianity. He discovered to his embarrassment, the law of spiritual thermodynamics, namely, the greater the heat, the greater the expansion. The more he persecuted the thing, the more it flourished. Finally, he got his little straggling band of men in an upper room, and he shouted to them, bah. Christianity provokes too much thinking. Why, even the slaves are thinking, which to a Roman mind was incredible. Because Romans said, slaves do not think what, my friends, slaves do think under the impact of the word, do you? I have never met a Christian who sat down and planned to live a mediocre life. You keep going the direction in which you're moving, you may land there. The unexamined life is not worth living. And how we need to hear in our giddy age, go hide thyself. But I want you to Note in verse 4 the promise. God never gives a command without providing the dynamic to fulfill that command. He never calls you to a task without providing all of the resources you need for it. In verse four we read, and it shall be that thou shalt drink of the bra and I have commanded the ravens there to feed thee. Very simple fare. Simple, but sufficient. I have had some wonderful opportunities working with students. I have a student coming to see me periodically. Now, this is a young man dreaming dreams and seeing visions. If I can just keep him away from some older Christians who want to throw a wet blanket upon what God is leading them to do, you're going to hear from this young man in the next generation. If I were to tell you what he is planning, many of you would laugh. So absurd appears to be the idea right now. But he feels God is leading him to it as he's been planning and thinking and praying. He came to see me not too long ago. He said, Prof. There are a lot of problems. God's going to have to do a miracle work if we ever get this off the ground. I said, that's what God specializes in. Did it ever occur to you that there is not a work of God in our day that has not been the product of a miracle working God? And I reminded him of our experience at the seminary. Shortly after Dallas Seminary was founded in 1924, it almost capitulated. It came to the point of bankruptcy. All of the creditors were going to foreclose at 12 noon on a particular day. That morning, they met in the president's office with Dr. Chafer to pray that God would provide. And in that prayer meeting was a man by the name of Harry Ironside. When it was his turn to pray, he prayed in his characteristically refreshing manner. Lord, we know that the cattle on a thousand hills are thine. Please sell some of them and send us the money. While they were praying, a tall Texan with boots on and an open collar stepped up to the business office and said, I've just sold two carloads of cattle in Fort Worth. I've been trying to make a business deal go through and it won't work. And I feel God is compelling me to give this money to the seminary. I don't know if you need it or not, but here's the check. And a little secretary took the check. And knowing something of the criticalness of the hour financially went to the door of the prayer meeting and timidly tapped. And when she finally got a response, Dr. Chafer took the check out of her hand for exactly the same amount of the debt. And when he looked at the name, he recognized the cattleman in Fort Worth. And he turned to Dr. Ironside and he said, harry, God sold the cattle. I have read enough of the history of the Moody Bible Institute to know that this school stands here today as a product and as a monument to a miracle working God. And as long as this school or any other school or work is faithful to the commands of God, he will supply. And when any institution or any work of God begins to waver and move away from his commands, it will go broke. Am I talking to some young man or woman who also is dreaming dreams and seeing visions in whose life the spirit of God is moving with concern to reach the thousands of people who could care less about Jesus Christ right now? It seems fantastic. It seems impossible. May I introduce you to the God Elijah knew by intimacy, the God who said, go hide yourself, who also said, I'll feed you, I'll give you drink. But in verses five and six, I come to two verses which I must confess my heart leaps to, I think, because they are so contrastive to my own experience. For in verses 5 and 6, I read of the response of this man of God. Here's the command, here's the promise. But there must be a response. And there is verse five. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord. For he went and dwelt by the brook, Kirith, that is, before Jordan, the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, bread and flesh in the evening. And he drank of the brook. I mentioned earlier, I would have been conducting an argument with God. You know, there is a lot of humor in the Scriptures. And I want you to turn for just a moment to the book of acts, Acts, Chapter 9, for one of the most human incidents in all of the Scriptures. In Acts, chapter nine, as the chapter opens, we are introduced to public enemy number one, to the church, Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, moving from Jerusalem to Damascus, and on the road he meets the risen Christ. And he's revolutionized. In verse 26, we read, and when Saul was come to Jerusalem, that is, on his way back, he essayed or attempted to join himself to the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and believed not that he was a disciple. I think I overhear one of them saying, look, how sharp can you get this man feigns conversion in order to get on the inside of the group and find out who are the individuals identified with the group. And then he'll proceed to liquidate us one by one. Oh, no, we're not taking him in. This is hard for me to believe in terms of contemporary Christianity. You know, down south, we give invitations for everything. We give invitations to join the church, open the doors of the church, and the people come forward and we ask them profound questions, such as, you know Jesus Christ as your savior, don't you? And you know, if the guy had a half a brain cell functioning, he'd know how to answer it. In fact, if he grunts, he's in. I was in an elders meeting not too long ago in which the pastor was interviewing a couple to be received into the membership of the church. And he said, have you read and are you in agreement with the doctrinal statement of this church? The man blushed profusely. He said, pastor, may I remind you, you just gave this to me last night and frankly, I have not time to read it yet. Oh, well, he said, that's all right. We'll change the question. Will you read it and be in agreement? And so help me. Right in front of my eyes, they tuck him in. And when I read a section like this, I find it very difficult to identify. Oh, no, not him. Now, you turn to verse 10 of the same chapter, and you get a little flash of insight in terms of the mentality of these people as to why they were skeptical of his conversion. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, behold, I am here, Lord. The Lord said unto him, arise. Yes, sir. Go into the street which is called Straight Roger and inquire in the house of Judas. Got it. For one Saul. Uh huh. Of Tarsus. I don't think he ever heard a word from here on out. How do I know? Look at verse 13. He prayed. And in his prayer he proceeds to give God a little information. Did you ever do that in your praying, Lord? This is Hendrix, 2820 Milmar Drive. We even had the zip code today. That's what he's doing. Look at verse 13. Lord, I've heard by many of this man how much evil he hath done to thy saints. And I am one of them to thy saints at Jerusalem. And I heard he just left there. And he's on his way here, where he has authority from the chief priests to bind all that call upon thy Name. Now, I know you have a period in your text, but I do not believe there should be a period here. I don't think he ever finished his prayer. God interrupts. But the Lord said unto him, go thy way for a moment. When God said to Ananias, go. He says, lord, you appraised of all of the facts. When God said, go thy way, he ceased debating. And he goes, and he puts his hands on him. Verse 17. And he calls him brother Saul. How would you like his assignment? How would you like to put your hands on public enemy number one, recently converted? If I had been there, I'd have gone and said, brr. At this all. Well, you're not sure about what this man is going to get up from his knees and put air between your head and your body. You wouldn't know it until you sneezed. When I read in 1 Kings 17 God saying to this man who had been so successful in the spectacularly dramatic ministry in the palace, go hide yourself. There is not a word of debating or argumentation. He went and did according to the word of the Lord. May I remind you, my friends, that the opposite of ignorance in the spiritual realm is not knowledge, it is obedience. To obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams. The Lord and I have a running argument. I constantly attempt to impress him with how much I know. He constantly seeks to impress me with how little I have obeyed. And he goes to the Cherith Bible conference. At typical Bible conference, fair bread and flesh in the morning, bread and flesh in the evening. Right at home. Now will you turn in verse seven to the test? And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up. What a revolting development, Lord, didn't you tell me to go there? Right. How can you be in the center of the will of God and have a drying brush? My friends, God is not simply interested in the impartation of your faith. Faith. He is interested in the development of your faith. And he knows that faith only develops under pressure. It only develops in the crucible. God calls Abram out of Ur, the Chaldees, across the Fertile Crescent, down into the land. He no sooner arrives in the center of the will of God, the place of plenty. And there is a severe famine. And the first thing he does is head for Egypt. And what a pack of trouble he got into. We have some thrilling testimonies of the leadership of the Lord in the life of our students. Here is a young man, college or university, extremely gifted, well trained graduates and goes into a professional Field, where he's eminently successful. Every time he turns around, they're giving him another offer. But spiritually, he's fed up with the setup. This isn't it. No fulfillment here for me. And he feels the call of God upon his life. And he resigns his position, sells his house. God's called him to train for vocational Christian work. And he lands in Dallas. And at the end of the third week of his first semester, he surveys the scene. He still has no job. He's beginning to think he's highly qualified to be utterly useless. His wife is sick. And furthermore, he gets three blue books returned through the mailbox, each one of which has an F on it. And he doesn't know very much Greek yet, but he knows enough English to know that that does not stand for fine. And I seen this student come with these blue books clutching in his hands as he stands in my office and says, Prof. What happened? I have never been more convinced that I am directly in the will of God. I have no job. My wife is sick, and I'm flunking three corsets. And I have often said, my friend, this is as much a part of the curriculum God has designed to shape you as the courses in which you are enrolled. Will you turn with me for just a moment to mark chapter four? Our Lord illustrates this principle. Mark 4. You have a portion of the teacher training program of our Savior as he attempted to groom a handful of men for a ministry of multiplication. And in chapter four, you have a series of parables which focus upon the subject of faith. But our Lord knew that you do not learn faith by lectures. You learn faith in the laboratory of life. And he was a good teacher. He gave examinations. Not the kind we give at the seminary. We give cramming exams where we test to see how much the student can cram in his beam. I met one not too long ago in the hall. I had to communicate with him. And he said, Prof. Don't talk to me. Don't touch me. I'll leak everything I know. No, our Lord said, verse 35. And the same day. What day? Why, the day in which they just heard the lectures on faith from the world's greatest teacher. When the even was come. He said unto them, and Mark the statement, let's pass over unto the other side. Roger, let's go. So they take off across the water. Mark tells us in verse 37, there was a great storm of wind. The wave beat into the ship so that it was now full. That's his way of telling you they had it. This was a hopeless case. One thing to have the boat in the water. It's another thing to have the water in the boat. And this is not a statement of a group of seminarians. This is a statement of a group of professional fishermen who had spent all their life on that lake. They'd never seen a storm like this. So they come to the Lord, who, interestingly enough, is asleep in the back part of the ship. And to translate it graphically, they say, lord, don't you even care that we're in a process of going down? The implication is, at least you can help to bail out. And the Lord rebukes the wind and the waves, and there's no problem here. Wind ceased. There was a great calm. And then he said unto them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? The little word you is in the emphatic position. How is it that you of all people have no faith? You who just heard the lectures, they wrote a blue book, and it came back with a big F on it. And that was not for faith. You know, I have asked myself, suppose Jesus Christ were to return to speak personally. What would he say? Is it possible that with all of the graciousness and compassion of his heart, he would turn to us as an audience and say, how is it that you, you, you, you of all people have no faith? Privilege creates responsibility. Revelation demands a response. God has commanded, he has promised. The next step is yours. It's a step of obedience. But mark it well. The moment you take a significant step of obedience, you're going to be put into the crucible. You're going to be tested. You're going to have to write a blue book on your faith. I'm sure in an audience of this size, and certainly out in radio land, I'm talking to many people who are sitting today by a drying brook. It could be financial, it could be physical, it could be intellectual, it could be emotional, it could be spiritual. And you're asking, Lord, what happened? And he's answering, nothing. I'm just answering your prayer. You put yourself in Elijah's position for just a moment. Here he sits. The brook diminishes. It becomes a trickle. Finally, there are some puddles, and then they evaporate. How do you respond to that? I'll tell you. I have the highest respect for this man. I wouldn't have done that. Why? Had I watched that brook diminishing, I'd have gotten out my Texaco map. I'd have been looking for every water hole in the area. My motto is don't sit there. Do something. He sits by a drying brook. Can you imagine what he must have thought? How come the brook is drying up? What caused that? And finally it dawns on him with impact. The brook is drying up because I prayed that it would. Sometime. You have asked, lord, make me like your son. And he takes you at your word and begins the process. And you say, lord, what happened? Why did you allow this to come into my life? What are you doing with this drying brook? He says nothing except answering your prayer. For never forget Jesus Christ. Although he was a son, yet learned he obedience through the things that he suffered. Perhaps what the spirit of God is saying to many of us today is, I want to minister through you. But before I can ever minister through you, I must minister to you. Don't despise the educational experience of your drying bro. Don't throw in the towel. Don't perform an abortion upon the divinely devised process. Let Patience have her perfect work that you may be mature and complete. He wants to make you just like his son. You've been listening to Howard Hendricks. 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