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  ELIJAH, ENSNARED BY DISAPPOINTMENT
  by Fred Tomlinson
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Summary: This sermon delves into the story of Elijah in the Old
Testament, highlighting God's unique dealings with him as a visual aid
to reveal Himself. It emphasizes the importance of expecting the
unexpected from God, being attentive to His gentle whispers, and
understanding that God's ways are beyond human comprehension. The sermon
encourages listeners to be open to God's leading, even in times of
disappointment or when facing unexpected circumstances, as He works in
mysterious and transformative ways.

Topics: "Expecting the Unexpected", "God's Gentle Whispers"
Scripture References: 1 Kings 17:1, James 5:16, Psalm 139:6, Romans 8:28, 1 Corinthians 2:9, Proverbs 3:5, John 10:27, Hebrews 13:5, Ephesians 3:20

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon delves into the story of Elijah in the Old Testament,
highlighting God's unique dealings with him as a visual aid to reveal
Himself. It emphasizes the importance of expecting the unexpected from
God, being attentive to His gentle whispers, and understanding that
God's ways are beyond human comprehension. The sermon encourages
listeners to be open to God's leading, even in times of disappointment
or when facing unexpected circumstances, as He works in mysterious and
transformative ways.

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CONTENT
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Hello, I'd like to welcome you this morning, whether you know it or not,
you've just joined a Zoom meeting of the Christian Fellowship in
Abbotsford and we're so pleased to have you. If you wanted to contact us
at all, you can do that. Our web address is, or email address, what is
it? Forgive me, it's the web address, is mackenziefellowship.com, just
one word, mackenziefellowship.com, so there you are, you're very welcome
anyway.

This morning my attention has been drawn back to a very sort of romantic
figure, I use the word advisedly, in the Old Testament, Elijah, and I
started reading about Elijah again just the other day and decided it was
in the Lord's will for me to share some things about him here today. The
only problem, and it's a big problem, it's a huge problem, is although
there are only three chapters here in First Kings that we read about
Elijah, there's just so much information, so many things that would be a
great pleasure to share, so I'm not going to really get very far with it
this morning, I know that. But the story of Elijah is very familiar, I
think familiar to most, almost all of us I'm sure, and it's a story that
takes me back to Sunday school days where we were first introduced to
Elijah.

So the story's familiar, but I have a question, what if I were to say
okay we've got these three chapters 17, 18, 19 of First Kings, what is
the story about, or if you like who is the story about? The obvious
answer to that question would be well it's about Elijah, and that's
right, and it is indeed about Elijah, and what an amazing man he was.
But you know there's a fact that we need to take into account, and I
want to focus on it a bit this morning, and that is that there's a much
deeper reality here to be found as we read here in this section of
scripture, because really I'd like to suggest to you that the story here
is really about God. It's a story about God, it's a story about God
revealing himself through his dealings with a man.

I think of it this way, it's as though God is using Elijah as a visual
aid, and through what we read concerning the interactions between God
and Elijah, and then Elijah back to God, we're transfixed with just the
uniqueness of God in his dealings with this man. And you know when the
thought that's crossing my mind right now, there's no snow here in the
parts of the world where I live at the moment, but you know we've been
told, I've never done an examination and never will, that every single
snowflake is different. That's a stunning fact if indeed it's true, and
I've got every reason to believe it is, I've heard it for so many years
now.

But for me as a Christian man, when I'm given that kind of information,
it causes me immediately to think of the one who is the creator of the
snowflakes, and what an incredible mind this great God, this creator God
has to do such a thing, and this is just one very small element of this
entire creation which is so remarkable. We get to know God in a variety
of ways that we could talk about, but one of them certainly is by what
we see he has created, and we wonder at that, and we get to know God by
his dealings, the way he deals with people, the way he's been dealing
with each one of us individually indeed. And so I've got that kind of in
mind as I'm thinking about Elijah in this section of scripture, because
there's an interaction between God and him as the story unfolds.

His name means quite literally, God is my strength, and Elijah comes on
the scene very abruptly so far as the text of scripture is concerned. We
don't know anything about his background really in terms of parents or
anything of that sort, we have an idea which area he was from, we'll not
pause to think about that just now, but he emerges on the scene at a
time when the nation which is called of God has become so engrossed with
sin and idolatry, to quote a text from another passage of scripture,
they were drinking iniquity as though it were water. Mind you as I quote
that text I think about our contemporary situation in the world at large
right now, where people drink iniquity as though it were water.

And Elijah comes on the scene, he comes on the scene as a man, although
we know nothing about his background, we can be absolutely certain that
God knew him even before he was born. In fact I think we'll go further
back than that and we can say before even the foundations of the earth
were created, God knew this man who would be known as Elijah. And I do
know that he was a man who prayed intensely to God, I read that in the
book of James in the New Testament, which is a very interesting
quotation and statement certainly, but evidently and quite clearly that
took place before we actually meet Elijah in the 17th chapter of First
Kings.

But God ordained that this man would come on the scene and to quote
another scripture, he would be a man who would be a sharp cutting
instrument with teeth, do you remember that text? In other words he was
ordained to be an implement in the hand of God with sharp cutting teeth,
that was from Isaiah 41 incidentally, and as we read on about him and
the various things which we're not able to go into in that kind of
detail this morning, but we can see that the man that God chose and God
created for this purpose was a man who himself was the product of God's
own divine workmanship. He was a mere man, but at the same time quite
evidently he was a trophy of the grace of God, he was the result of
God's own workmanship and it's very evident as we read on through the
various chapters that he was a man who had chosen to relinquish his
self-life and to become a man who was like, to change the metaphor, who
was like pliable clay in the hand of God. He was God's man and God
ordained it that way and you know this is certainly the way that we
really ought to think about ourselves as well, perhaps we'll see this a
little bit more as I continue a few minutes now, that God's hand has
been involved in your life even before we were born and these things are
they're too great for us to comprehend with our human minds.

These are mysteries to us but the Bible clearly tells us that God
foreknew us and God has sovereignly ordained our lives that we should be
here at this particular point in time and he's been working in our lives
and with this end in view can I say, so that we ourselves may be those
men and women who are responding to his wooing, his kindness, his grace
and yielding ourselves to him ever more fully that he might be all in
all. That's his plan and his purpose, it could be described in various
ways but Paul uses those words writing to the church. Now I know in
saying all these things that we're in the old testament, in the old
covenant and we know there's a new testament or a new covenant and we
understand that the kind of things I've been referring to are not unique
to the old testament but as we move on into the new testament we find
that these truths, these facts that I've mentioned already, they all
come into a far crisper focus in the new testament and take on a
dimension that they don't possess in the old testament but we also
remind ourselves of the words of the apostle Paul who referring back to
the old testament said that these things were written for our learning
and so there's great profit in going back as we are just now into the
old testament looking at this particular individual and God's dealings
with him and to do it from our present perspective as men and women of
the new covenant we can see how the unchanging God was working then in
these lives and in a sense he's provided for us this visual aid, a
reminder of just what in fact God is about with each and every one of us
at this point in time.

Amen and I hope as I'm talking to you this morning that these things I'm
saying resonate in your own heart and not because they're new facts that
you've never thought of before but rather that they're echoing and
resonating with the work of the Holy Spirit already working in your
heart and in mine. Amen. So I'm just going to read the opening couple of
verses from chapter 17 of first Kings.

Now Elijah the Tishbite who was of the settlers of Gilead said to Ahab
as the Lord the God of Israel lives before whom I stand surely there
shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word and the word
of the Lord came unto him and so the text continues but I'll break away
from it at that point. What a remarkable thing having said all I've said
about this man you know in that we know nothing about him except that he
was a praying a man who prayed earnestly prior to this but clearly he
was God's man and in this dark moment in the history of Israel he is
clearly being led of God to do an incredibly courageous thing he goes
right into the palace of the king Ahab this wicked king and standing in
front of the king of the nation he makes this statement as the Lord God
of Israel lives before whom I stand do you see that what a remarkable
statement it's as though he's dismissing this king in so many ways but
in order to elevate the fact that there is a God there is an almighty
God and that he himself is a man of that God and he comes to the king of
Israel with a word and a message from that God for him on this occasion
amen now I'd like to talk about the development of what Elijah has just
been announcing but that'll have to wait for another time maybe we'll do
that sooner rather than later but I must move on let me just continue
the reading the having heard the pronouncement to the king verse 2 says
the word of the Lord came to him saying go away from here and turn
eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith which is east of the
Jordan and it's this particular feature I want to just notice having
courageously gone before the king with this great pronouncement now God
says okay time to go I want you to leave here and go and hide yourself
now this is quite quite remarkable um this is this is not let me
emphasize this this now departs or this go away and hide yourself is not
it's not some kind of punitive response from God or something of course
it's not and the fact is as we go on and read the following verses we'll
find without any question that God certainly doesn't forsake him at all
but nevertheless God has instructed him to go and hide himself don't
forget and it would be easy to forget what I said at the beginning as we
proceed that we're watching the the interaction between God and his man
and we're trying to learn something fresh to our own understanding about
God himself so we're asking ourselves well why why would God do this um
you know it's God saying okay you've had your moments on you know the
national stage now I'm finished with you no absolutely that's not true
at all but you know this that seems strange is not really that uncommon
I think there are many examples that I could find of this whether I'm
looking into the scripture or just looking into history I wouldn't need
to go very far back in history to call your attention to David Wilkerson
but I remember listening to David Wilkerson on one occasion and he'd not
been heard for six months the fact of the matter is that God had spoken
to David Wilkerson who as you know was a renowned and recognized
evangelist a remarkable man in his own right but clearly God had spoken
to him in particular because I was listening to him at the end of the
six month period so he was retelling the events and how they'd unfolded
but he said God spoke to me very clearly and and said to me that he was
far more concerned to evangelize me than I was to evangelize the world
in other words God needed to do a deeper work in his life and David
Wilkerson was acknowledging that and so on if I had lots of time I could
talk about myself and my own experience which I can't afford the time to
say anything about myself but I do know something about being hidden but
the fact is God was still working in his circumstances and we could read
for example just dropping my eye down to verse 7 and it happened after a
while that he caused the brook where he'd been drinking to dry up and so
on and then there was a unique way in which God provided with him
through a widow woman these these events were very different just try
and put put these pieces together will you you know the man who's had
such incredible courage and sense that God was leading him and that he
had the word of God he takes it into the palace of the king and and of
course there's a famine that ensues as the result of what he said and
then we're looking at him and he's alone he's in hiding and he's he
lived by the brook cherith and the ravens brought him food and then the
brook dries up and then he goes to a widow who looks after him can you
see the contrast tremendous contrast this is God who has engineered
these particular circumstances uh who is is in control of everything's
going on this is this is this is the man who's had such tremendous
success on mount carmel but let me add another dimension to this because
um the the next thing that uh that he he becomes aware of i'm turning
whole pages over here i'm sorry i have to do that um but ahab who was
the king of course at the time uh he goes i'm now in chapter 19 of first
kings now ahab told jezebel all that elijah had done and how he had
killed all the prophets with the sword then jezebel sent a messenger to
elijah saying so may the gods do to me and even more if i do not make
your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time and
verse three reads like this and he elijah was afraid and arose and ran
for his life and came to be a sheba which belongs to judah and left his
servant there and he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness
and came and sat down under a juniper tree and requested for himself
that he might die and said it is enough now oh lord take my life for i
am not better than my father's and the story continues i'm trying to
bring to your attention these contrasting features this is not what i'm
about to say is not the title that i gave to this message in my notes
that i had uh but but sheila who is somewhere out there listening to me
um she said she asked me what the title might be of the message and i
said you know i'm tempted to call it uh a man's roller coast journey to
heaven because it's an amazing story i need to just remind you again of
mount carmel and the tremendous success i want to remind you that that
there were 450 prophets of bail that were on the other side of the you
know the opposing team if you will and they're all destroyed as a result
of this man and his authority and so on and yet now look at him not only
has the raven's been feeding him and drinking at the brook and then the
brook goes and dries up on him and then it's a widow woman but then the
fact is the word of jezebel has come to him this is what we're reading
about here now in this chapter and and the effect upon him is
unbelievable we say what what happened to this man is he's heard that
jezebel's on his case and he runs away the man who had faced 450 of the
prophets of bail and seen them destroyed by the the power of god coming
down like fire onto the offering remembered all of that and so on and
now he hears this woman's after him and he's running for his life and
and almost more than that yes more than that he he just wants to die he
thinks it's all over now the man of god it looks so incredibly weak and
we're reminded of the fickleness of the human heart it's very easy to be
critical but then maybe we have to think a little bit more about
ourselves and wonder about our own behavior on so many occasions that's
so contrasting and so incongruous at times and we can be ashamed but the
fact is he goes into this wilderness of his own making let me just say
this though about elijah which would be true of any true man or woman of
god that the man or woman that is truly called of god cannot die until
god's purposes are fulfilled with them and in them and for them and this
is certainly true here he may have felt like this was the end for
whatever reasons and he may have been incredibly wrong and surely was in
the things that he said but the fact remains god hadn't finished with
him he needed to do more in him that's quite evident and he wanted to do
more through him also as the story continues to unfold you know there
was a there was a journey that needed to be taken because there was
there was more about god that elijah needed to understand and there was
more of god's gracious work to be accomplished in his life and that very
well could be true of many of you people who are listening to me this
morning that there's that there's there's more to be done there's more
to understand a few weeks ago we were talking about priscilla and aquila
and they're talking to apollos and they showed him the way of god more
perfectly and it's very easy as professing christians to become smug in
whatever history or historical experience or experiences we've had in
the past but you know when we're talking about god there's always more
that he needs to do in our lives that sanctifying process needs to be
enlarged it needs to touch depths of our inner man that we hardly knew
we possessed and this was certainly true for this man and so there was a
journey that needed to be taken and i get the word from the text where
god through the angel is speaking now to elijah and he's providing food
uniquely for him and and it's unique food and the angel says you need to
partake of this because the journey is too great for you this journey
that he was to take would see him traveling i think about 100 miles it
was a journey to whoreb and i i don't want to draw too tight a parallel
here but i'm in my mind i'm paralleling it with calvary just now because
the whore the place whoreb of course was really mount sinai some say it
was the other side of the mountain but in any event we know from earlier
texts that this was a sacred place where others had had experienced god
it was a place where god had revealed himself and manifested himself in
some remarkable ways as you will recall and evidently god wanted to take
him there he's alone and god had this journey in mind for him you know
in in terms of god doing a deeper work or a broader work in our own
spiritual lives the way forward in the economy of god is always
experienced by going backward the lord by his holy spirit takes us back
to calvary again he takes us back to the cross again the principle and
the power of the cross that we must experience understand more fully and
experienced in a deeper way in our lives and and that journey to the
cross is impossible i use the word advisedly it's impossible for a man
to do we can't do it in and of ourselves god is always the initiator he
is the alpha and he's the omega he is the one and he he he's ordained
the journey he's ordained what we go to on the journey and he has
ordained a means by which he will get us there i don't know everyone
that's listening to me today but this journey that is so crucial for us
to take again and again and again is a journey which which god will
engineer for us i believe i can safely say this as surely as the call of
god is upon your life god will go to all lengths to get you there and
this this place this this deeper understanding and experience of god
it's not something that was fully accomplished on the day when we first
went forward in an evangelical rally for example it's not the result of
undertaking a six-month series on sanctification where we learn all the
information it's more than that it's it's god by his spirit initiating
something and leading us and directing us perhaps through many many
circumstances to bring us again to that place of full and complete
surrender to god and i've already indicated even though we've done it
once we've done it a hundred times we'll find this is the way of the
spirit is always leading us back to the cross again and again not that
we've wandered away but he's taking us there again to learn something
fresh to experience something deeper and richer over and again now
having arrived at Horeb the the i think all i have the time and
opportunity to say here is that this place which was the place where god
had manifested himself by by fire and by earthquake to moses is the
place where now god is bringing elijah forgive me for not reading the
text please read these three chapters as soon as you have the
opportunity and you get all the information there but the the fact is
that that um uh forgive me i must just read this god says to elijah go
forth and stand on the mountain before the lord this is chapter 19 and
verse 11 and behold the lord was passing by and a great strong wind was
rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the lord
but the lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake but
the lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake a fire but
the lord was not in the fire and after the fire a sound and this
translation puts it of a gentle blowing a still small voice as the old
king james translation uh i'm i'm told that the the hebrew here really
it suggests a still gentle whisper okay what does all this mean god has
brought him from the drama of carmel and through these strange
circumstances in the wilderness and has directed him here to this
particular place just as god would direct us through the various
circumstances that are part and parcel of our personal history and he
brings us to this place and what is he doing he's he's he's teaching
elijah something that each and every one of us need to learn again and
again uh and having having you know he's been exposed again to the fire
the air and the earthquake and so forth and then there's this voice of
gentle silence and that was how god was manifesting himself in this
horror of the sinai place but his his method of communicating and what
he's teaching to elijah and to you and to me is that everything about
god is unexpected to us uh and uh you know in so many cases this is this
is why we miss him so often for this very reason we're expecting him to
come in a certain way the way that he came before the way that he's
ministered to us before or the way he's ministered to others before and
we expect it's going to be the same and that's where we make a mistake
and we often miss him at that time and a dear man communicated with me
recently and and and he said in his communication i i need a miracle and
i only had a moment and i was not able to make any response to that at
all but as i walked away from that scene where i had just read that
information this thought crossed my mind but you already have the
miracle the miracle is that god loves you the miracle is that god is
speaking to you right now the miracle is that god is putting a desire in
your heart for him do you see how easily that we find ourselves
gravitating to the sensational to the to the dramatic experience we feel
that's what we need and by pursuing that when god is no longer in the
the earthquake or the fire but god is in this this gentle whisper he's
whispering into a heart he may be whispering into your heart at this
point in time we we so quickly become sort of sentimental about
particular experiences or ways in which god has ministered to us in the
past and we miss the gentle silence of god speaking to us and and
another thing that we're prone to do is is because it's this new way
that god is speaking that we're just not in tune to it it's as though we
we turn the volume up the worldly volume whatever that is because we're
just unaware and insensitive to the fact that god is speaking here and
we miss him in the immediate moment it could be that god is speaking
something completely fresh into your heart as you're listening to me let
me remind you of some of the scriptures how unsearchable are his
judgments and his ways are past finding out were told this man as we
know from the unfolding story he'd become ensnared with disappointment
it reminds me of the two disciples on the Emmaus road remember as they
are unaware that they're in the presence of the resurrected jesus at the
time he's walking with them and they're talking together do you remember
the little phrase that they use in responding to he said they one of
them said we we had hoped we had hoped it had been he who would have you
know saved israel and so on uh the fact is we can live in that place you
know we we'd hope things were going to turn out different we'd hoped it
would have worked out the way we thought it should have worked out and
so on and then and in that in that transition into disappointment we
lose the radiance of the life of the spirit of god in us we lose the
sense of witness that he's with us he's working nevertheless in my heart
and we lose the effectiveness of his spirit working in our hearts so he
god now has elijah there maybe he's got you and me there freshly just
now in that place at the cross and uh and the lord says to elijah okay
elijah what doest thou hear the question was asked twice in the in this
part of the text what do you do can i paraphrase that deliberately i
think the way i'm understanding that statement what doest thou hear
would be in in terms like this elijah do you know why you are here and
and if god had put it that way and if god were continuing in this
hypothetical response that i'm thinking of god would say to elijah and
he would say to you today my dear friend you are here where you are
right now because i led you here that's why you're here so that i could
demonstrate these great principles to you and you could stop trying to
stereotype for me if god uses that word uh it's as though god is saying
elijah i am god don't stereotype me don't expect me always to do the
same thing that i once did in the past train yourself elijah train
yourself fred tomlinson train yourself peter boyle and then put your
name in there train yourself to be attentive to the flowing progressive
work of the spirit of god elijah needed to hear that perhaps that's
exactly what you need to hear this morning now before i pull away from
this text and from these thoughts this morning um whoever you are just
remember this that he has you at this horeb calvary place and you are
safe you are safe it's utterly safe because it is he who is handling
your life he who is the king of love he who is seeking to fall afresh
into your into your inner heart into your life he's here with his ramer
word his cleansing word speaking to your heart this today in the mind
and heart of god i believe as surely as god speaks to any of us by this
living quickening life imparting faith imparting word is because it is
the day of a new beginning when he speaks it's in order to accomplish
something new and something wonderful because the story of elijah in
this passage continues on and to do justice to it we'd even have to
leave the three chapters and go into second kings and chapter two and
you know elijah reaches the whole climb the climax of his journey is
that somehow in a scene that is not described in in the kind of detail
we'd like it to be described but god provides a flaming chariot with
flaming horses and somehow elijah is now in that chariot and he is
whisked away into god his cloak symbol of the authority of god and the
anointing upon him falls away from him even as the chariot begins to
soar away and the cloak falls and lands on the man who's been his
companion for some time now i think you know about that we'll talk about
that on another occasion let me be let me grant me just a little bit of
license here can i suggest that as the chariot is lifting i don't know
at all i have no idea whether it was like this but in my mind's eye i
see elijah and he glances back down to the ground which is disappearing
away from him and he sees his dear friend elijah there and it's in my
mind he's got a message for elijah and he says elijah remember to expect
the unexpected from god because his ways are past finding out train
yourself elijah to listen for his still small voice and know this for
sure that when he acts when god acts he does things you would never even
have imagined and could never even to have mentioned i think god's doing
something like that for me right this moment as i sit here talking to a
camera and i have the ability to speak to so many of you out there may
god bless you and may god work these things out in your life let me just
pray and then i'll hand over to peter father we thank you we thank you
from our hearts love that you've not just done something wonderful for
us and then just set us free to go and make the best of it out there in
the world but we thank you father that you've come by your holy spirit
to fill our hearts to be to be god even within our breast lord how
wonderful you're not even walking just alongside of us and holding our
hand but you live in our you've made our hearts your temple we bow down
and worship you lord and we pray father that you'll find each one of us
attentive to you that our inward ears may be so tuned to hear your
whispers in our heart and our feet that is our responses to be so ready
to run in your will and in your bidding or to sit and wait and rest if
that be your leading lord we love you thank you for this wonderful
opportunity to be together and to share and to listen we pray that by
your holy spirit you will accomplish your purpose in it all for your
name's sake for your glory we ask in jesus name amen amen what a
blessing

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/2BCrPTb3GxA.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/fred-tomlinson/elijah-ensnared-by-disappointment/
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