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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature Dr. Howard Hendricks, and for over 50 years he was a professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary. Chuck Swindoll. No man has meant more to me in my adult life than Dr. Howard G. Hendricks. Since I was his student. I have not prepared a message from God's Word without remembering and applying the techniques Prof. Taught me. Today, Howard Hendricks presents a study on Elijah in Confrontation. Have you ever wondered why? Why there is so much in the Scriptures that is biographical? It's obvious to an even casual reader of this book that its pages are penetrated with personalities. Men and women who are not a fugitive from a wax museum, but who are made of the same tissue of light as each of us. The Holy Spirit loves to teach truth in terms of life. May I suggest for you a fourfold value to the study of the Scriptures from a biographical point of view. Spiritual biographies first leave us in admiration. I cannot come away from the life of a man like Abraham, Moses, Barnabas, Paul, without my spiritual tongue hanging out. Oh, I know someone says, you can lead a person to water or a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. That's right. But you can feed him salt. And this is the salt that the Spirit uses to make you hungry and thirsty for righteousness. But a study of the Word of God in biographical form also leaves you reap. True. If you want to know the real poverty of your spiritual life, look into the mirror of the Word. I come away from the study of a man like Abraham and think, if he did what he did with what he had, what should I be doing on the basis of what I have? Studying biblical biographies again leaves us without excuse. I find it tears away every crutch which I palm off to God as a reason why I am not living more effectively for the Lord. But in the fourth place, they leave us with hope. Don't say it can't be done. They did it. Some years ago, I had a deacon in my church who was the reincarnation of Peter. In fact, every week that went by, I was convinced that he had returned in the flesh. And in a Bible class, I had a series on the life of Peter. And I brought the series to a climax by using that thumbnail sketch which our Lord pens of the Apostle Peter in John 1:42, when he says, thou art Simon, thou shalt be called Cephas, which by interpretation means rock the before and the after. And it took considerable time before the Lord got him Simonized. When I got to the end, everybody got up and walked out except this man. He sat directly in front of me with his head cupped in his hands, looking directly at me. And finally he said, preacher, I got it. I said, you've got what, Jack? He said, I got it. If God can do something for Peter, he can do something for me. My friend, God the Spirit was coming through loud and clear in terms of an individual with whom he could identify. May I invite you to turn to 1? Kings, chapter 17. We want to see Elijah in confrontation. So we plug in on the narrative. At verse one, we read. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years. But according to my word, I love that this man comes on strong like horseradish. It's like turning on a transistor radio. You immediately get sound, Storms up the palace, steps into the presence of the king and declares his ultimatum. I think I overhear two of the secret servicemen. One says to the other, hey, where did he come from? How did he get in here? And while they're discussing the matter, he's disappeared. My friend, whence such courage? You will never understand nor appreciate what Elijah did until you understand. When he lived, the nation was on the skids. The spiritual horizon was dreadfully monotonous. There was a mania of mediocrity. Seven thousand were huddled miserably in a cave in silent protests. We don't want to get involved. This man Elijah stands out like a spiritual colossus in the midst of a generation of spiritual pygmies and perverts. You turn back to chapter 16, which tells the sad story of the rapid spread and universal prevalence of idolatry. It comes to a climax in verse 30, where we read, and Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ephbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served BAAL and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for BAAL in the house of BAAL which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove, and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all of the kings of Israel that were before him. Ladies and gentlemen, it was not convenient nor comfortable to take a stand for God in that generation, it never is. What's the secret of a man or a woman communicating with a generation of chaos? May I underscore in your thinking three keys, three secrets to the effective communication of this man in his generation and the effective communication in our generation. In the first place, I want you to note that Elijah was convinced of the reality of Jehovah as the Lord God of Israel liveth, he's alive. But Ahab, those confederate with him, thought they had successfully embalmed and interred Jehovah worship. They made one serious miscalculation. They forgot a man. And, my friends, that's all it takes in any generation with the living God. One man, overwhelmed by his aliveness, shot through with reality, the reality that only God can bring into human experience. My friends, the most convincing thing about Christianity is its power to change men. The world is not overwhelmed by your argumentation. The world is not overwhelmed by your success story. The world is only convinced by that which it cannot produce, and that's reality in human experience. Only God can produce that. That's why Christianity is the most revolutionary thing in all of the world because it promises to revolutionize people. And you can never change society until you change the most important person in that society. That's an individual. May I ask you this morning, as I ask myself, what is there in your life that you cannot explain on any other basis other than the supernatural? What is there in your life this morning that is proof positive of the reality of God in your life? You believe God is a lie. There's not an unbeliever in a car load. But I didn't ask you if you believed that. I ask you what changes are being wrought in your experience today that is proof positive to a world screaming for reality that God is alive. You know, it's amazing how difficult it is for the Lord to break through to us in certain areas. I used to pray for years as a father. Lord, change my children. And nothing happened. I used to go into my study at the seminary and throw myself across the floor and say, oh, Lord, overhaul my students. And nothing happened. Then I began to see that my prayer must be changed. Lord, change my children's father, change my student's professor. And when God is pleased to do that, I see remarkable, dramatic changes in the life of my children and of my students. Some years ago, I was speaking at a banquet on a Friday night. Following morning, I was to catch a plane for a weekend ministry. So I came home from the seminary and drove into the driveway. My headlights fell upon my boy's bicycle tire flat as the doornail. We have a motto in our home. Tomorrow we get organized. And I said, bob, you know, one of these days, buddy, we're going to get to it. So I knew, friend, it was either now or never. So I plowed in and we fixed the bicycle tire and I got washed up and tore across town and got there about 20 minutes late to the banquet. The MC had ulcers on his ulcer by the time I was there. Really shook up. Where in the world you been? I said, I'm awfully sorry. I had a flat. Said, I thought you had a new car. I said, I do. It was my boy's bicycle tire. Boom. This boy's cork went off. And quite frankly, he gave me a portion of his mind. I don't really think he could afford to lose. And after he got through, I hope graciously, I assure you firmly, I said to him, did it ever occur to you, my friend, that on certain occasions it is far more important that I fix my boy's bicycle tire than that I eat your meal? And I went away and as always, looked forward to going home. My boy and I were out in the park playing ball together. Then we took a little walk through a wooded section. We stopped under a tree. We're throwing some stones into a creek. I said, hey, Bob, you love me? Said, I sure do, dad. Great. Why? Why? I don't know. How philosophic can you get for eight? I said, bob, you never want to love anybody or anything without having a reason. Quite frankly, I forgot all about it. Must have been a half hour later he spun around and said, hey, Dad, I got a reason. He said, a reason for what? Why I love you. Oh. I said, wonderful, pal. Why? He said, because you play ball with me and fix my bicycle tires. You ever have the Lord pick up a two by four and drop it right on the center of your head. Ladies and gentlemen, my children are not impressed that I came up here this week to talk to you. Do you know that? You'd think they would be. In fact, my children are not even impressed by the fact that I'm a seminary professor. Imagine that. My youngest boy said some time ago, hey, dad, when are you gonna get a new job? So what's the matter? Don't you like my job? Nah. Why not? I can't explain to anybody where you work. They all think you work in a cemetery. And my friends, sometimes I think I do. Now, my kids are not impressed by all of the religious routine in which I am engaged. They are not impressed by my knowledge of the original languages. They are not impressed by the words that neatly and easily cascade from my lips. They are impressed by the reality of Jesus Christ in my life. It's easy to pull the wool over your eyes this week, but it's not easy to pull the wool over the eyes of my wife and four teenage kids in the city of Dallas. They know whether I have the real disease or not. How do you convince a world that God is alive, my friends? By his aliveness in your life, by his work in producing reality in your experience. What a message for a phony generation. But I want you to note a second truth found in this man's experience that I believe the spirit of God wants to weave into the pattern of arts. Not only was he convinced of the reality of Jehovah, he was also convinced that he was a representative, the living God. As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, my friend, that gives dignity to Christian experience. I never cease to be amazed that God can consistently perform the miracle of the ministry, and that is, employ human personality to accomplish his purpose. I, a personal representative of the living God. I have been listening to a great deal of contemporary music recently. I must confess I have a hard time choking down the music, but I am fascinated by the words, particularly of some of the songs. Have you heard the popular song who Will Answer? Will you listen while I read it for you? Without the musical static from the canyons of the mind we wander on and stumble blind through the often tangled maze of starless nights and sunless days While asking for some kind of clue A road to lead us to the truth. But who will answer? Side by side, two people stand together Vowing hand in hand that love's embedded in their hearts. But soon an empty feeling starts to overwhelm their hollow lives and when they seek the how and whys who will answer? On a strange and distant hill a young man's lying very still his arms will never hold his child Because a bullet running wild has struck him down and now he cries, Dear God, oh why? Oh why? But who will answer? High upon a lonely ledge A figure teeters near the edge and jeering crowds collect below to egg him on with Go, man, go. But who will ask what led him to his private day of doom? And who will answer? In the rooms of darkened shades A scent of sandalwood pervades the colored thoughts in muddled heads Reclining on the rumpled beds of unmade dreams that can't come true when we ask what we should do who? Who will answer? Neath the spreading mushroom tree the world revolves in apathy as overhead a row of specs roars on Drowned out by discotheques and if a secret button's pressed because one man has been out Guess who will answer? Is our hope in walnut shells worn round the neck with temple bells? Or deep within some cloistered walls where hooded figures pray in halls or crumbled books on dusty shelves or in the stars or in ourselves? Who will answer? If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name? If the mind is baffled when the rules don't fit the game? Who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer? Ladies and gentlemen, in the midst of a generation where the world is screaming, who will answer? Christians are stuttering, Christians are paralyzed, Christians are uninvolved in the process of giving the only answer to the searching question which men are asking. And I know many of you listening to my voice, not only here but through the radio, are saying, what can I do, my friend? I am quite sure that Elijah could have come to the same conclusion. The nation's headed for doom. The moral microbes are eating the heart out of it. Seven thousand over here in a cave who can't speak. But it's still true that God is looking for one man, one woman who will become his personal representative behind the pulpit, certainly in a classroom at an institute such as this, by all means, through varied forms of Christian work, to be sure, but also in those communities, in those homes, in the office, the shop, out on the university and college and high school campus, where people who are blind to the glories of our Christ see Him incarnate in you as his personal representative. My spiritual experience has been revolutionized more recently. I must confess, as many a Christian worker, that it is very easy to become compulsively active. It is hard to learn the lesson of the barrenness of busyness. Your activity simply becomes an anesthetic to deaden the pain of an empty life. And if you get off long enough, you discover you've got activity without accomplishment. I used to get up with the compulsiveness of a Christian. I've got to go to work today. I've got to witness today. I've got to do this and that today. And I was quite active. But there was a sterility about my experience. Then the truth dawned on me that all God wanted me to be was available. His messenger boy, a suit of clothes in his readywear department that he could put on at will to accomplish his purpose. I had a Week of meetings for eight days, and I had spoken 34 times. And I was flying from Chicago to Los Angeles. Had to change planes in Denver. By the time I got to Denver, I was so weary. I got on a plane, I went all the way to the back, third seat in, hoping no one will come and sit down. Lord, don't send someone here. Your servant has been so busy. And the plane filled up and nobody sat there until finally there was only one seat left, and that's the one next to me. Man got on the plane, came down the aisle, sat down, took out his little executive case, opened the thing, and then, with explicatives I shall not repeat, said, where is my brief? I'm on my way to try a case in Los Angeles. I don't have the brief. And he gets up and tears down the aisle and tells the stewardess, you've got to open that door. I gotta get out of here. So they go through all of the pains of opening the door. Sitting outside of the door now, completely exhausted and partially asleep, is a GI who had been bumped 19 times in a row. And this was the 19. The agent said, hey, buddy, you're on. He never got the message. Told me later he had to almost pick him up and put him on the plane. And this boy comes down the aisle and he sits down next to me. And I thought, lord, I hope he's not talkative. He was incurably talkative. Finally, in the midst of the conversation, he turned, as invariably someone will do, and he said, by the way, what do you do? Mister, this is always embarrassing. You know, we usually make good progress in a conversation until finally somebody says, oh, by the way, what do you do? Well, I'm in education. Oh, that's very interesting. Where do you teach? Well, I teach at the Dallas Theological Seminary. The what? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. You're a preacher. You see, those of us that are preachers, we're paid to be good. The rest of you are good for nothing. This time I didn't fudge. I said, son, I'm a preacher. He said, really? He said, really? He said, mister, I'm on my way to Vietnam, and I know I'm not supposed to be, but I'm scared to death. You got anything that would help me, Lord? So I get my testament out and I explain the gospel to him, and somewhere between Denver and Los Angeles, this guy accepts Christ as his Savior. I said, now, friend, I want you to do me a favor. I'm going to write my name and address Here on this card, when you get to Vietnam, I want you to drop me a note and I'll send you some literature that'll help you to build on this foundation. So this guy gets to Vietnam. When he arrives, he walks into the barracks. Sergeant says, hey, buddy, you new around here? That's right, sir. Said, okay. Want you to get the signal straight. Tomorrow's Sunday, and in this outfit, everybody goes to chapel. That includes you, right? Yes, sir. So Sunday he goes to chapel. He's sitting in this chapel, and the chaplain gets up and preaches the gospel. And this kid says, you know, that's the same thing that guy talked about on a plane. So after the service, he went up and said, hey, chaplain, you know, an amazing thing happened. He said, but I was flying from Denver to Los Angeles, and a man told me the very message you were talking about. And I received Jesus Christ as my savior. In fact, he said that if I'd write to him, he'd send me some literature. Here's his name. And this chaplain said, that was my professor at Dallas Seminary. Now, you know, there are a lot of people who say, isn't that an interesting story? Isn't that filled with coincidence that a lawyer just happened to forget his brief, that a kid just happened to be bumped 19 times in a row, that he just happened to sit down next to me, that he just happened to ask if I could help him with his fear, that he just happened to land in Vietnam and of all of the places, lands in a group where there is a believing chaplain, preaches the word of God and gets this kid in a Bible class so that he can grow my friend, I don't believe a word of it. I believe this is a part of the excitement of waking up every day to say, lord, I'm simply your suit of clothes. Put me on to accomplish your purpose. But I want you to see one final truth. Don't miss it, my friends, or you miss it all. This man was not only convinced of the reality of Jehovah, of the fact that he was a personal representative of that God to his generation, but he was also convinced of the resources which were available to him. We need to do some reconstructing in the text. If you'll turn with me for just a moment over to the book of James, you will find a divine commentary on this passage, where In James, chapter 5 and verse 17, we are told something that we know nothing about. In the King's passage, James 5, 17, we read, Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months, ladies and gentlemen. The fact that this man could courageously confront the King and his generation was the product of a man who prayed. But where did he get the idea to pray like that? Will you turn back in your Old Testament to the book of Deuteronomy for a moment? Deuteronomy, chapter 11. There are two verses that I think perhaps give us a clue. Deuteronomy 11:16. Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. Then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you. And he shut up the heaven that there be no rain and that the land yield not her fruit unless ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord God giveth you. It is my personal conviction that this man knew that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. He knew that God had promised if a nation defected spiritually, he would withhold the rain. This man prayed earnestly that what God had promised, he would also perform. So often when people say to me, what can I do? What resources are available to me in the midst of this apostasy? My friends, Elijah did not have one thing that is not completely available to everyone here today. He had the word of God. He had the power of prayer. What more do you need? The ability to believe God for what he says and then to appropriate it by believing prayer. My friends, it is one thing to believe the Lord, to know that he can do it, but it's quite a different thing to appropriate it. In your experience. I did something last summer I do not believe I have ever done in my life. I hope I never have to do it again. I was in a pastor's prayer meeting where the unbelief was so crass I had to get up and walk out and go back to my room and get the word out and fill myself with the living God and realize that I am his representative in this generation and that all of the resources available to any other individual of faith are completely available to me. There are too many crepes hanging out the doors of Christian hearts, too many unbelievers among us. Please note, I did not say unsaved. The capacity to stretch oneself out on an infinite God, to believe him, to do what he specializes in. That's the impossible. Father, your word is so plain, so relevant, because it is revealed, so contemporary, because it's authored by the living God. We pray that in these confusing hours you will fill our minds and our hearts with the reality of the Lord. Convince us by what you are free to accomplish and change in us. Then, Father, enlist us afresh as your personal representatives the privilege of living in a generation that would dare to ask who has the answer. Forgive us, our Father, because so often our position is going by default because we are silent when we should speak. Then our Father overwhelm us afresh with the infinite resources completely available to us this day. For Jesus sake, we ask it. Amen. You've been listening to Dr. Howard Hendricks. Listen to faith of our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.