From the very outset, I was uplifted and encouraged to not worry if I wasn't having the same breakthroughs or triumphs that perhaps others had been experiencing over the past 5 nights. But rather to pay attention, delight in the message, store it up, because we have no idea what God is going to be depositing in us, to be pulled out of us in the coming days.
So we have had Rhythm, Sound, Time, Test, and Language. Tonight was all about the COST of revival. That we better know the cost of something before we ask God for it!
His message tonight was formed around the passage of scripture from 1 Kings 18:21-41. It's about Elijah's victory at Mount Carmel. King Ahab was married to Jezebel and she had had altars built to Baal, and she had been successfully encouraging Ahab and the people of Israel to worship Baal and turn away from God and she had been killing all of the prophets of the Lord. So Elijah goes to Ahab and prophesied,
“As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.” - 1 Kings 17:1 (NKJV)
and they think he's kidding or nuts or both and tell him to go away. But for the next 3 years, just as Elijah had said, no rain had fallen on their land, and they were in severe drought and famine. God tells Elijah to go to Ahab and He will send the rain. So Elijah does what God commands. He goes to Ahab and tells him to gather everyone, all the people of Israel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, and meet him up on Mount Carmel. Which brings us to verse 21:
21 And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 23 Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 24 Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”25 Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.” 26 So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made. 27 And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. 29 And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. 31 And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” 32 Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two seahs of seed. 33 And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four waterpots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” 34 Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. 35 So the water ran all around the altar, and he also filled the trench with water.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 Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. 37 Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”40 And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there.41 Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.”
Okay, so what just happened? Basically, Elijah is saying "Choose a side" whether you're going to keep worshiping Baal or come back to God and worship him once more, you need to choose, you can't have it both ways. So to decide which God is the true God, the prophets and Elijah are both going to prepare an offering, but not light the fire. And whichever God sends fire, that's the one true God. All day they wait but the god of the prophets doesn't do a thing, so now it's Elijah's turn, but instead of just praying to the Lord, he first tells the people to fill up the 4 water pots and pour it out on the wood. But he doesn't just do it once or twice, he asks them to fill up the pots and pour them out three times. By now the wood is saturated - Have you ever tried to light wet wood? Anyway, so the people of Israel have poured out their water on the wood, Elijah prays to God and God answers Elijah's prayer. Then God does as He has promised and sends the rain.
Sometimes God will ask us to do something impractical, something that doesn't make any sense to us whatsoever. He is looking for our obedience. He is looking for our faith. He is looking for us to Trust Him, wholly and completely. So when he does the impossible, our faith is grown, and the world will know, and He will get all the glory.
For the people of Israel, water was their most precious commodity. Remember they are in a drought, they couldn't just go into town and grab a pot of water. The water they poured out was most probably their own personal drinking water. Their decision to do as Elijah had said was one with real-life, life and death consequences. But God was looking for the impractical from the Israelites so that He could bless them with the impossible. If God wants the wood to go up in flames, being soaked with water isn't going to stop Him from being able to do that. But what God was looking for from the people of Israel was faith. An expression of faith, so that He could release a blessing upon them, far beyond what they could have imagined.
God wants nothing more in this world than for you and me to live an abundant, fulfilled life, blessed beyond measure. But are we willing to pay the cost for what we are praying for? The Israelites gave up their water for the promise of rain. What would we do or give up? We pray for more money, but we aren't willing to sow our tithe and offering into His kingdom. We want to lose weight, but we don't want to give up eating fast food. We want to God to use us, but we complain when we are being used. We pray for our anxious thoughts to go away, but then fill our minds with negativity.
I would rather have only 90% of my resource and God's power and blessing on my life, than have 100% of it and be all on my own, with the rain clouds withheld, holding onto one canteen, when I could be having a whole cistern. - Levi Lusko
I hope I did the message justice - I was trying my hardest to keep this one short because I know that all the other posts have been quite long - don't think I succeeded though, lol. But at any rate, I hope that you have been blessed by it, encouraged by it, challenged by it. I encourage you to go to the Elevation Church website or their YouTube channel and watch the archive of Levi's message. It was a fantastically powerful word from God.
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