The Man God Uses

As a Christian biographer, I have made a study of men whom God has seemed pleased to use to bring Him glory. Men like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, Azahel Nettleton and D.L. Moody. Men who knew their Bibles and who knew their God.

It's a fascinating study to see how God builds a man that He can use. The man that God uses is a multifaceted man with a singular purpose. Years ago, I was standing on Round Top at the grave of D.L. Moody in Northfield, Massachusetts.

I stood there with utter solemnity in realizing how God used D.L. Moody. And as I thought upon the life and ministry of Moody, a story of him came to my mind. Moody was still unknown and hidden by God, and he was speaking with a minister who said to Moody, The world has yet to see what God can do with a man wholly sold out to Him.

Moody turned and walked away, muttering beneath his breath, By God's grace, I will be that man. And as I walked down the hillside of Round Top that autumn morning, I said under my breath with tears streaming down my cheeks, Oh God, Moody was just a man, but he was your man. Make me a man like that.

My message today, friends, is entitled, The Man God Uses, and my text is found in 1 Kings chapter 18 and verse 36. While you turn there in your Bibles, our subject today is the prophet Elijah, and there are some facets to his life that comprise this message today. Let me read you this verse from 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 36.

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, The Lord, he is the God, the Lord, he is the God. There are several events in the life of Elijah that demonstrate he was indeed a God-sent man to perform a God-sized task. And that, friends, is what a man of God is.

He is a person sent from God to perform a God-sized task. It's a task beyond man's capabilities, beyond human reach. It is a supernatural task performed by the Almighty, the Ancient of Days.

The Lord God, he is the God. But before God can send a man to do his will, he first must prepare the man, build the man. It is in the preparing that we will look at today, how God builds a man that he can use.

The man God uses is the man God makes to bring him glory. I will illustrate some principles in the life of Elijah, and then I will elaborate on how God builds a man he can use. Let me say this.

There are many in ministry today that God did not build, a seminary did. Many occupy pulpits, but God does not occupy their ministry. I am not against seminary.

I believe in higher education as I am a product of it. But there is a vast difference, friends, between ministry that is run on man's steam and ministry that is operated by the Spirit of God. There are few prophets in the land today, but the land is plentiful with professionals.

Oh, brother preacher, what a difference to which I speak. Let us set aside our pride in academic degrees and seek God all afresh today and ask him to build us into the man he chooses and the man he uses. First, let us peer into the life of Elijah, this God-sent man.

The land in the day of Elijah was ruled by a wicked king, Ahab. We see the great adventure of the ministry of Elijah as found in the book of 1 Kings. He stops the heavens from sending rain with his vital prayer life and intimate walk with the Almighty.

He is a man jealous for the glory of God. This is seen in chapter 19 and verse 10 where God finds his prophet holed up in a cave and says to him, What doest thou hear, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. A man God uses is a man jealous for the glory of God.

We see in Elijah a prayer warrior and a man of great faith as he builds the altar on Carmel with the prophets of Baal on one side of him and the assembled masses on the other. It's a time of proving God to show himself strong and to demonstrate once and for all that he is the Lord God who reigns over all the earth. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal in this contest on Carmel, but it is really Elijah challenging God to prove himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.

God accepts the faith of his prophet in the form of the soaked sacrifice and the tongue of God licks up even the dust and all the water as if he is wiping his mouth clean in satisfaction of his servant's bold faith. Now friends, let me illustrate how God builds a man that he can use. There are some common denominators found in such a man.

When you look at men like George Whitfield and John Wesley and D.L. Moody, they were each multifaceted men with a singular purpose to do God's will in their lifetime and to reach the lost with the gospel in their generation. The man God uses is so eaten up with eternity and thirsty for Christ that he cannot be idle one moment while others are perishing. He sees an open hell with untold millions there in agony and he sees an open heaven with the risen Lord seated on a heavenly throne and he sees a setting sun on this generation and he realizes his time is short and his duty long, so he redeems the time because the days are evil.

The man God uses is not eager to climb denominational ladders and make a name for himself. Rather, he is a man willing to live in obscurity for the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom. The man God uses keeps himself unspotted from the world and he loathes sin and he hates the devil.

The man God uses lives in the presence of God and he is a man who has a holy fire about him and all who come in contact with that man can feel the heat emanating from within. The man God uses is deeply familiar with suffering. The vicarious suffering of Christ is evident in his life and scarred ministry.

He bears the scars of fought battles as he is the object of Satan's malice and the world's reproach. The man God uses has a heavenly fragrance about him that is intoxicating to others. He is salt in his generation as a preservative against evil.

The man God uses is so dead to self that he has no rights of his own for he knows he was bought with a price and that price was Christ's blood. The man God uses is a conduit for the living waters to flow out of. He is not a reservoir of knowledge that is stagnant.

Rather, he is like a clear mountain stream flowing downhill without any obstruction. He is a clear channel which God can flow through by his spirit and there is a God consciousness about him. The man God uses has a ministry of both transformation and permanence.

When Jesus was here in his earthly ministry, all those who encountered him experienced change and the change was permanent. A man sent from God has a transforming ministry in the lives of others that points them to heaven and makes them thirsty for Christ. It is God working through man, God performing his plans through man, God doing and acting through the human agent of his choice.

The man God uses does not do the work of man but the work of God. So the man God uses has a ministry of both transformation and permanence. Let me address this aspect of permanence.

What man builds eventually falls into ruin. What God builds remains. There is a vast difference between the work of man and the work brought by the Almighty.

What God performs has permanence, friends. Christ's work on the cross was a permanent work. God's work in your life is a permanent work.

God's work on earth has a lasting influence. So a man used to God, a man whom God uses has a ministry which lives on after he's gone, after he goes to glory. Look at the sacrificial life of a David Brainerd, the sanctified life of a Robert Murray McChain.

Though their mortal years on this earth were short, both men died in their twenties and their influence is long as their lives live on. There is a permanence to their ministry which does not fade away. This is seen also in the life of a John Wesley or a George Whitfield, a Jonathan Edwards or a D.L. Moody.

Though he is dead, yet he speaketh, says the word of God. The man God uses is a God-sent man with a God-sealed purpose. What God builds, he uses.

If God takes the time to build a man through trial and sufferings and adversity, to build character into the man, to build faith into the man, to build up the man through stripping the man down to nothing, God will use that man that he has been building. So I comfort you, friend, now, if you are in a trial or adverse circumstance and you feel pruned, stripped, and worn out, God is in the process of preparing you for further usefulness. You can't see it now because you are in the eye of the storm, but God can see perfectly well from his vantage point, which is above the storm.

Listen, friends. Jesus sat on the hillside for several hours as he watched his disciples struggle out on the raging waters below. He took his time coming to their aid and rescue.

He took his time because he was using that time to build his men into the men he could use after his resurrection. He knew those men needed to be self-emptied to where all reliance upon self was over. Jesus knew they needed to be built into men who were reliant solely upon God and his spirit to reach their generation with the gospel of the Son of God.

So as the sea rose and the wind blew and the water spilled into that tossed vessel, every time each man rode, he was working with God to become the man God wanted him to be. Do you see it, friend? Romans 8.28 is a verse that has a true reality in our lives if we will let it be so. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to whose purpose? Ours? No, to his purpose.

The man God uses is the man God purposes through to bring him glory. But if we desire to be used of God, we must be willing to spend time with God. The prophet Ezekiel was holed up with God at the river Kabar, Elijah was shut up with God at the brook Kareth, and Jacob rested with God at the ford Jabbok.

How about you? Are you ready to drop out of society and shut yourself up with God? He has some secrets he wants to reveal to you, but you must draw closer to him because he does not shout. It is the still, small voice that opens up the treasures of his counsel to those who draw near to him in a close walk with him. O, go to him, friend, and ask him to use you in a deeper way.

What cost counts and what counts costs. There is a sacrifice to spend in time with God, but the good news is that God is a God who delights in sacrifice. He sacrificed his own beloved son for sinful man.

How can we live such selfish lives and still think he will use us in a greater way? We must give him all of us, every inch of us, every bit of us, and be willing for him to take what we give him to use it. I will close this message on the man God uses with a quote from the great, late J. Sidlow Baxter. What I give to him, he takes.

What he takes, he cleanses. What he cleanses, he fills. What he fills, he uses.