Introduction

Driving home: Elias was a man of light passions and he prayed. And this is what God did. And then he generalizes the principle. The effectual. Fervent prayer of a righteous man, not just of an Elijah, but any righteous man avail it mu…

Martin contrasts Elijah's courage before a king and false prophets with the listener's inability to stand up to a boss or family, questioning how Elijah can be a pattern, only to then explain his 'like passions'.

When we read the heroics of this man of God, his courage, coming out of nowhere, standing before a heathen king, with all of the power of the kingdom at his disposal, and as it were, throwing down the gauntlet, saying there shall be no dew nor rain these three years, but according to my word, and turning on his heel and walking out, you say, that man has made a different stuff than what I made. I can't even stand up before my boss at work. I can't even stand up before my brother. I can't even stand up before my sister and mother and father, and even whimper a little witness.

2:37 - 3:11 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Elias was a man of light passions and he prayed. And this is what God did. And then he generalizes the principle. The effectual. Fervent prayer of a righteous man, not just of an Elijah, but any righteous man avail it mu…

The dramatic scene on Mount Carmel, with Elijah taunting the prophets of Baal and calling down fire, is used to highlight Elijah's extraordinary faith and God's power, while also setting up the point that he was still a man of 'like passions'.

We say, well, that's just in a level entirely different from what I know when we see him upon Mount Carmel. And if you can't get excited purely from the standpoint of the drama of it, you just are half human when you see this man taunting these prophets and with this sarcasm, asking them that their God's gone off for a walk, or has he gone to the bathroom, for this is literally what he did, taunting them and see him standing there and with all that calmness going up. And arranging the sacrifice, filling it with water and lifting up his eyes to heaven and that simple prayer and the clash of thu...

3:37 - 4:37 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Elias was a man of light passions and he prayed. And this is what God did. And then he generalizes the principle. The effectual. Fervent prayer of a righteous man, not just of an Elijah, but any righteous man avail it mu…

These proverbial associations are used to illustrate how Elijah's moment of deep discouragement under the juniper tree is as characteristic of him as his heroic deeds, showing his humanity.

The great heroic accomplishments of this prophet, but just as faithfully what he was like when unsupported by the grace of God. And just as much as the term Jonah's fish or whale is proverbial, just as much as we think of Samson in connection with his hair and Aaron with his rod. So we think of Elijah and his juniper tree. It has become a common phrase.

6:06 - 6:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: No man of God recorded in the pages of Scripture or in the history of the Church can be understood if you divorce him from the setting in which God raised him up.

The example of Martin Luther is used to illustrate that a man of God cannot be understood apart from the historical context in which God raised him up, explaining why Luther's 'nasty language' was necessary for his times.

No man of God recorded in the pages of Scripture or in the history of the Church can be understood if you divorce him from the setting in which God raised him up. If you set a man of God in isolation, you will not understand. If you study the life of Martin Luther, apart from the times in which he lived, there will be much that will unnecessarily disturb you about Martin Luther. There's much that disturbs me even putting him in his context.

14:19 - 14:49 Read in full sermon

Driving home: No man of God recorded in the pages of Scripture or in the history of the Church can be understood if you divorce him from the setting in which God raised him up.

Wesley's quote about the church needing a 'loud voice to awaken it' is used to further explain why God raised up a figure like Luther, and by extension, Elijah, for their respective times.

Melanchthon was the appeaser, the peacemaker. Melanchthon was the one who, when the boat began to rock, always tried to put oil on the troubled seas or balance up the boat. Well, these were times that didn't need primarily Melanchthon. They needed Luthers.

15:18 - 15:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: No man of God recorded in the pages of Scripture or in the history of the Church can be understood if you divorce him from the setting in which God raised him up.

Reading Old Testament history as a collection of unrelated short stories (like Jack London or Edgar Allan Poe) is used as an analogy for failing to grasp God's overarching purpose for Israel, which is crucial for understanding Elijah.

Now, I remember a few things I do remember from my high school days. One of them was having to read some of the short stories of men like, I think it was Jack London, wasn't it his first name, London? And Edgar Allan Poe and some of these things. And you'd get collections of these short stories.

16:38 - 16:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin details the first two specific evils: an official repudiation of Jehovah's worship (forsaking the covenant) and studied attempts to obliterate all remnants of true worship…

A quotation from an unnamed source is used to succinctly describe the nature of Baal and Asherah worship as pantheism or deified abundance, contrasting it with the personal Jehovah and drawing a parallel to modern discarding of a personal God.

It's one thing for a man in some measure not to be all the husband he should be. It's another thing for him to leave his wife, and it's under Ahab that Israel forsakes the covenant of God and openly repudiates the worship of God so that as we read earlier, they gave themselves to the worship of Baal and Asherah, the two gods of the Sidonians. Now what were these gods of Baal and Asherah? Let me read for you from a summary that will state it more succinctly than I could.

34:25 - 35:02 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin details the first two specific evils: an official repudiation of Jehovah's worship (forsaking the covenant) and studied attempts to obliterate all remnants of true worship…

The analogy of a man leaving his wife versus actively trying to get others to leave their wives is used to illustrate the intensified wickedness of Israel not just repudiating Jehovah but actively seeking to obliterate true worship.

To the more cultivated and refined, it was simply a species of pantheism. To the multitude, it was what one has called the worship of deified abundance under a splendid and sensuous ceremonial, or the worship of Baal was the worship of power as distinguished from righteousness. Hence the apostasy of Ahab in giving up the personal Jehovah, the covenant God of Israel, and the creator and preserver of all things, and preferring Baal was analogous to, if not indeed precisely identical with, the modern heresy of those who discard a personal God and refuse to believe in Him who is a loving Father wh...

35:36 - 36:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that when a man throws off the knowledge of God, he becomes filled with a passion to blot out any remembrance of that God because every remembrance is a stab to his conscience.

The analogy of a man exposed to pure ministry who then turns from it and aggressively seeks to blot out all remembrance of God is used to explain why apostates become the most inveterate enemies of the Church.

Sin was death. obliterate all the remnants of true worship. May I say by way of application that always happens when a man has thrown off the knowledge of God. He becomes filled with a passion to blot out any remembrance of that God because every remembrance is a stab to his conscience.

38:06 - 38:24 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He continues with the third and fourth evils: open defiance of God due to His apparent silence (illustrated by Hiel rebuilding Jericho) and positive, studied attempts to establish…

The example of Mormons sending out missionaries is used to illustrate how the positive, studied attempt to establish falsehood is a mark of the final stage of apostasy, paralleling the 850 prophets of Baal.

Well, how do you know that the more apostasy Mormons are sure enough dead in earnest to fill the world with their heresy? How do you know it?

44:09 - 44:15 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He continues with the third and fourth evils: open defiance of God due to His apparent silence (illustrated by Hiel rebuilding Jericho) and positive, studied attempts to establish…

A friend's master's degree study on Canaanite worship is used to explain why God blotted out those nations, emphasizing that immoral gods produce immoral people, which was now happening in Israel.

Now can you imagine with that situation at the top of Israel what things must have been like down in the grass roots of the rank and file? A friend of mine did his master's degree on the subject of the wisdom of worship of the Canaanites prior to the invasion of Israel. He said if he ever had any doubts as to why God blotted them out as he did, he lost all those doubts when he studied what their worship was like and what it produced in the lives of the people who believed in those deities. Immoral gods produce immoral people.

45:37 - 46:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Beware of the beginnings of sin, either in life or in doctrine, as small compromises can lead to wholesale apostasy.

James's analogy of sin as conception, gestation, and birth is used to warn against the beginnings of sin, emphasizing that welcoming temptation leads to death.

when lust conceives when you welcome as it were and he uses the analogy of sin of conception and gestation in birth when you welcome the sperm of temptation to the ovum of lust there'll be conception and its birth will be sin and sin will turn with a dagger between his teeth and plunge it into your breast sin when it's finished bringeth forth death that's the analogy of scripture in James he uses the figure from human conception in birth and he says beware of conception beware of conception

53:58 - 54:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not relinquish one principle of truth for any so-called immediate blessing, especially in establishing church government, to bless future generations.

The metaphor of diamonds shining with greatest brilliance against black velvet is used to convey encouragement that God's mighty works of grace are most evident in the darkest times.

I hate every false way be scrupulous about the truth of God think of unborn generations in the Trinity Church beloved we're not just building to minister to this generation but we may be building to bless or curse unborn generations some people get impatient with some of us in places of responsibility because we move so slow here we move so slow in establishing our government we move so slow beloved you know why because this principle hangs before me constantly constantly I hope it hangs before you and that we will never for any so-called immediate blessing relinquish one principle of truth th...

57:36 - 59:03 Read in full sermon