SWYC 2010: Stand

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GYC Southwest

Plenary Meetings

David DeRose

Elijah’s Work -- and Yours

There are introductions and there are introductions.

But this is clearly 1 of the stranger introductions in the Bible.

I invite you to turn to I Kings with me, I Kings chapter 17.

It's not an unfamiliar chapter, but it's a very strange introduction.

Elijah is introduced to us in I Kings 17, and the first verse.

It says, 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.

An awfully strange way to introduce someone, isn't it?

The introduction is with a powerful message.

Yet before that powerful message, There's a reminder of who Elijah was as far as his roots.

Look with me very closely at the first portion of 1 Kings, verse 17, and what jumps out at you as you look at Elijah's background?

What is the introduction of Elijah, other than this powerful message?

What other indicators, what other insights into who he is?

Now for us As Christians today, when we hear the word Gilead, what do we often think of?

Of course, the balm of Gilead ultimately points us to Jesus, the great healing balm in the scriptures and in life.

But to the Israelite mind, was this connection between Gilead and Balm connected?

Or is it something that's more of a modern connection that we make in 21st century Christianity?

Turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis 37 and I think we'll come up with some insight into how enmeshed in the Israelite mind was this connection.

And as you're turning there, you may recall the context of Genesis 37.

It's not 1 of the happier stories in the Bible.

It's a story of how God, through adversity, preserved his people.

It's the story of Joseph being sold into slavery.

We're going to pick up the story right in midpoint there in verse 24, Genesis 37, verse 24.

Now, I just have to pause right here because maybe it's possible that some of you right now are feeling like you're in a pit.

I don't know what that pit is, but maybe you're dealing with some difficult things in your life.

Maybe you're even wondering why you're here.

But I want to remind you, as we look at Genesis 37, Joseph is in a pit.

It looks like something really bad is happening to somebody who was quite good, but under inspiration we're told that God in this experience was sending Joseph.

How many of you have been praying that God would send you to just the mission field he wants you to be in.

I realize maybe you're in school right now.

And you say, well, I know where I'm supposed to be.

Or you say, I know I'm supposed to be in this very workplace.

You're wondering what God wants you to do.

I want to tell you that Sometimes it's in the midst of that pit that God is doing the most remarkable work in sending you to your ultimate destination.

But the connection we want to make here is not that powerful 1, but is another, because it follows right in verse 25.

In verse 25, we're introduced to a group of Ishmaelites.

They're coming from none other than Gilead.

That's right, they've got camels with them.

But what do they have in those camels, in the sacks that they're carrying?

They've got spices and of course they have balm.

They have the balm of Gilead with them and they're going to Egypt, the most prosperous nation in the world at the time.

And in the mind of the ancients, this connection between Gilead and balm and healing are intimately connected, going all the way back to the time of Joseph, going back to the Egyptians longing for the finest things that money could buy.

The Ishmaelites knew it And so they came from Gilead with balm.

1 Kings 17, because we're actually focusing this morning on Elijah's work and yours.

1 Kings 17, verse 1, we are introduced to a man who comes from a land where there is balm, where there is healing virtue.

This is, my friends, a glimpse into God's health message, I would suggest to you.

Now, some of you say, well, wait a minute.

You've got those MD letters after your name.

You're making quite a leap here to connect Gilead with healing.

But it's intimately connected in the Bible.

And I just want you, as you're looking at this introduction to Elijah, to realize that it was significant enough for the writer, the inspired writer of Scripture, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to make sure that we knew that Elijah was not just a tishbite, but that he was from the place where that healing balm was found.

And so here comes someone with the health message.

He comes from Gilead, the place where the balm is found.

And so what is the healing message that Elijah brings in 1 Kings 17, verse 1.

I can see some of you are acting quite perplexed, because it doesn't sound like a healing message to say that it's not going to rain, especially in a land that we know, as the story plays out, it's not just a few days of rain.

It ends up being 3 and a half years of rain.

By the way, if you were to look at Elijah's message, let me ask you a question in light of our theme.

How many people were standing with Elijah when he walked into Ahab's throne room in 1 Kings 17?

He was standing alone and he was giving a message that, by the way, this message appeared to be divisive.

I mean, all of Israel ultimately becomes divided over this message of Elijah, weren't they?

I mean, they were looking, Ahab was and his henchmen, for Elijah because Elijah had brought ruin to the nation.

This was what was going on throughout the kingdom.

Daniel’s Work -- and Yours

Father in heaven, you've already been blessing us, not only this morning, but throughout this weekend.

And we've sensed again the shortness of time.

And right now we're sensing, I'm sensing, the shortness of time even this morning.

And yet at the same time we know that you have a message that you want to present.

I pray you'd make that crystal clear to me what needs to be emphasized in the short time that we have and that that same spirit of urgency would be impressed on each of our hearts as we seek you day by day to know just what you would have us do.

We thank you that we can trust you to guide now for we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen.

I don't know if I can imagine a worse situation.

Maybe you've been there yourself, but something that you've really looked at as a unifying theme, a unifying focus in your life.

Maybe it was something that you were putting your energies into.

Maybe it was something that gave you resolve and gave you focus.

And now it seems like everything that really your life was centered around, at least to some extent, has been pulled out from under you.

I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Daniel 1.

We may not catch the magnitude of what's happening in this familiar chapter from the pages of the Old Testament.

But Daniel 1 is a traumatic juncture in the history of God's people.

Remember, the people of God had been physically led by Him, by Jehovah, in the pillar of fire, in the pillar of cloud.

None, they are free in the promised land.

God is leading them physically, showing His physical manifestation.

And yet even in that context, he says, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

There was no question about whether God was with them.

And yet the sanctuary was to be the focus not only of God's physical presence with his people, but it was also a promise.

It was a promise of who God was and it was a promise of what God wanted to do.

And part of that promise was a promise of a God who not only was all gracious and saving and redeeming, but a God who was all just.

For the sanctuary reveals both the love, the mercy, and the justice of God.

The sanctuary was really the focus of God's people.

And so here in Daniel 1, this is a traumatic story in the history of God's people.

Because in Daniel 1, as the account opens in the very first verse, it tells us that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came onto Jerusalem and he besieged it.

And amazingly, it says, the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his God.

And he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his God." Do you catch what's happening here?

Do you catch what the people of that day saw happening before their eyes?

When another nation conquered a nation And they took their gods, their symbols of worship, and brought it into the house of their god.

It indicated that the conquered people's god was impotent, that their God was more powerful.

And you remember some of those stories in the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant brought into the house of Dagon by the Philistines.

Same imagery here, only there's no drama that happens in Babylon.

There's no toppling of Chaldean gods and goddesses.

It's been in the ranks of Adventism for years and it's still there.

Have you heard other things like, well, you know, all this stuff that our forefathers believed.

They just didn't really understand things.

We're not bound by those literalistic readings of the Bible and the spirit of prophecy.

There have always been voices saying that God's truth is bankrupt.

But in Daniel's day, in Daniel's day, to the mindset of the people of the Old Testament, the people of Judah, to Daniel's peers, what had played out in front of them was seeming to give credence to all the arguments that were raised by the opponents of God's people, and right in their own ranks.

How come I had lived my life with this focus and it wasn't coming true?

And whether it's finances or health or family issues, maybe It seems like you're derailed from that focus.

And people are telling you, well, that's not God's focus for you at all.

And yet you knew he was calling you to something special.

Others of you, it's some area of lifestyle.

And again, the Holy Spirit has been speaking to your heart in these meetings.

He's been telling you he's got a higher calling for you.

And yet you say, but I started going down that path before and it just ended up in misery.

I ended up with a group of kids that ended up leaving the church or I got real serious about my health and I ended up getting sick.

There are times in life where it looks like the things that God has called us to, in fact, not only looks like what God called us to, God had called his people to build the sanctuary, hadn't he?

God was physically present with there, and now it looks, as we read the first verse of the book of Daniel, that God's ways, God's principles, God's truth is laying in the dirt and in the dust.

And it's in that context that some of the Hebrew nobility are brought to Babylon.

Among them, we're told, in verse 6, is Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

And you know how this story plays out there in Daniel 1?

Nebuchadnezzar, I mean, he was a wise king.

I mean, he wouldn't just put foreign rulers into his conquered nations.

He would train the youth from within the church, if you will, from within the conquered nation, and he'd have them go back into leadership positions.

Or was Nebuchadnezzar following a plan that Satan has to this day?

Are there people to this day in the ranks of Christianity who somehow think whether they are forcibly, by circumstances, by family desires, by opportunity?

How many of them think that maybe they will be better leaders in God's work by going to the schools of the Babylonians.

Now, don't misunderstand the point I'm making here, because Daniel was brought to the school of the Babylonians.

But listen to what happens in the school.

And in that peer group, you have a different identity.

Daniel and his friends are given different names.

But beyond that, they start working on you to change your lifestyle.

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Daniel’s Work -- and Yours

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