My Lord. Somebody ought to shout. We ought to be reminded that He's for us. And I'll quote you a verse. If God's before you, who can be against you? Amen? Man, that's a great song. I needed to hear that tonight. I'm gonna have prayer just a moment. How many needs prayer tonight? Raise your hand if you need some prayer, amen. We got one of our young ladies. I used to call her, she was a high schooler, now she's a teen. Leah Strope, and she quarantined tonight because she getting ready for surgery on Wednesday. And this is a big surgery, real big. And I'm gonna pray for her individually right here in just a moment. And I want you to remember her on Wednesday when she goes to have this major surgery. What's so hard, her parents can't be there. They've got to stay out in a car, and that's difficult. But I am glad that God is going to be with her, amen? And we're praying for y'all. And also, I got word this afternoon that really burdened my soul. Kevin Bartlett, pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church. Kevin is right at this moment in a very critical state. He is critical. He is in danger as I speak right now. He's in danger. He been on a CPAP machine in the hospital since Friday. They put him on a ventilator today because his lungs went downhill quickly. His one lung collapsed. And now here's what they're doing, they're bringing a I only have one of these in the whole state of West Virginia, a special ventilator. I guess it deals with people that has clap slung or whatever his situation is. And they're having, they could not fly him to Morgantown because of the wind. So they're bringing it and transforming it down to CMC. So you be much in prayer. And that's why we're gonna stay real cautious. Don't you get real boastful about this disease. Y'all be real cautious. Wear your mask, spray your hands, and watch where you're going. And if you get around that junk and you think you're exposed, don't come around here until you know you ain't exposed. Is that all right? Am I okay with that? Because that's important because we all had an outbreak, one outbreak in our church. because you've been doing the right things, but don't drop the ball. If the government locks me down, I'm not doing it if they tell me to. But if we have any outbreak, I'll shut her down right like that to protect us, okay? And we're gonna be wise about it. All right. Why y'all so quiet about it? Amen. You ought to be thanking God we're trying to take care of this place. 1 Kings chapter number 19, I want you to stand with your Bibles open when you get there. And I'm gonna pray for these requests after I read. Stand with me. 1 Kings chapter number 19. Wave a Bible at me if you got one. Wave it, wave it. If you're there, say amen. 1 Kings 19, go down to verse number nine. and I'll read down through verse 13 tonight, and I've got a thought on my heart that I wanna share with you tonight that's really heavy on me. Let me read these verses to you. The Bible said, and he, the he being Elijah, came thither unto a cave, and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and said unto him, What doest thou hear, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword. Listen to this. And I, even I only, am left And they seek my life to take it away. And he said, go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by. And a great strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces the rock. The rocks was Let me start that verse again. I'm sorry, my bifocals, I missed it all. Let me do it again. And he said, go forth and stand upon the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind ripped the mountains and breaking pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and 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 still small voice. And it was so when Elijah heard it, and he wrapped his face in his mantle, and he went out and stood in the entering end of the cave. This is repeated twice, so I think it's kind of important. And behold, there came a voice unto him and said, what doest thou hear, Elijah? Our father, I do want to pray for every request of those hands that are raised. I specifically want to pray for that dear preacher that is in critical condition. They're in the hospital. Undergird him, deliver him from this illness. Deliver him by your power. And Lord, we'll give you glory. One of our young ladies, Lord Leah, is gonna have surgery Wednesday. Her mama is not allowed to get in there with her. It's gonna be a difficult day, a long day. And God, I know she's listening probably by the way of live stream. God, help her. Touch her where she's at right now. Touch her mama, touch her family. God, overshadow them, we pray, and bring victory. And Lord, help us in the message tonight. In Jesus' name, for his sake, amen. You may be seated. Good to see such a good number of people out on Sunday night, amen? In 1 Kings 18, we're introduced to a great man of God. A man that done something that no one else had ever done before, and no one else has ever done since. He came for a reason. He came to confront Ahab and Jezebel and confront the worship of Baal. And by the way, the children of Israel knew better. How many believe that most of us know better and know what we ought to do, but we're just not doing everything we ought to be doing? Preach on preacher. God raises up Elijah. He confronts their foolishness. You know what? You know what we've lost in our purpose? We have lost preachers. We have got about like dumb dogs that can't bark, and we will not confront foolishness. If something is foolish, we ought to confront it. If something is bad, we ought to say something about it. Amen. Good preaching, Reverend. And by the way, he said that we're going to have a duel. You believe Baal's God? We're going to find out. And I believe Jehovah's God. And I'll tell you what you do. I'll let you go first. And they prayed. And they were sincere. And they screamed. And they broke down, they got mad when their God didn't answer. Somebody help me preach. And they broke down the altar. And all Elijah done, went and prayed a 63 word prayer. How many of y'all believe that it's not the amount of words that you pray, but it's the sincerity of your heart that you pray with? Amen? See, prayer is not the volume of the words, but prayer is the virtue of your heart. And God answered. And to really prove that he was God, he doused the whole thing with barrels of water. You know what God done? How many of y'all believe this story? You know what God done? He burned up the sacrifice and licked up the water. Some of y'all ought to say, whoopee. He did all that. And then Elijah in chapter 19, verse one, or excuse me, Ahab in chapter 19, verse one, went and reported all this to his wife. Don't that sound like today? Went and told mama. And Jezebel told Elijah, tomorrow, by this time, you're a dead man walking. Are y'all with me? I hope you're with me. And you know what this man did? After confronting Baal's prophets, killing 850 of them, he went on the run from one woman. And he ran 100 miles. That's how far it was to Beersheba, 100 miles. And I want to ask you this. How many of y'all believe he was safe on Mount Carmel when he was facing the 850 of Baal's prophets? Because he was in the center of God's will. And the same man in the center of God's will took off and left and run away and ended up under a juniper tree. He said, what's significant about them trees? The limbs are about 18 inches high. So he got up under that 18 inches and asked God to let him go on home. Y'all with me? I love this story. But God touched him and God fed him. And then he went 40 more days on them meals. By the way, when God takes care of you, he takes care of you good. And guess where he ended up, church? He ended up in a cave. Running scared, nervous wreck. You know what the devil wants all of us to do? Is to go hide out in some kind of cave. I'll tell the president, I'll tell the governor, I'm sick of hiding out. I'm gonna trust God. I'm not running in no cave. I'm not leaving the will of God. Somebody help me preach. And here's what God said. Can I give you a little West Virginia vernacular? Is it all right? He said, what doeth thou here? And I'll just say it like this. What are you doing here? I think I'll preach that tonight. What are you doing here? Why is your marriage in the sacred sin? What are you doing here? Why have you lost your burden for souls? What are you doing here? Why aren't you passing out trash like you used to do? What are you doing here? Why are we on fire for God? Why have we lost our heads? What are we doing here? And God sent the hell dogs to heaven. and hunted him down. And the same God that can send the hell dogs to heaven to hunt him down is the same God that can hunt you down. Listen to this, Chad. He went from power to powerlessness. He went from fearlessness to fear that quick. Let me ask you something. How many of you have had a mountaintop experience and you sense God like you've never sensed Him before and God moved in your life and it wasn't a long time after that you ended up in a cave? I want all y'all to know something. Get this, we are more susceptible to the devil's attacks when we're up here than when we're down here. Did y'all get that? And God said to him, what are you doing here? You said, what's the cave represent? Anywhere outside the will of God. It represents fear. And by the way, there's a lot of people in these days have chosen fear over faith. Somebody help me preach. The cave represents depression. The cave represents discouragement. The cave represents despair. The cave represents destitution. The cave represents falling out of church. The, whoo, glory. That's what the cave represents. I'm gonna ask you a question. What are you doing here? Why are you, look here, why are you hiding out in some kind of dark looking cave? What are you doing here? How did you get from joy to gloom that quickly? How did you get from victory to defeat that quickly? And I wanna ask you, what are you doing here? And we're talking about Elijah. And I want y'all to know something about Elijah. He was a man of like passion, just like me and you. And I have found myself to be where Elijah was. I have seen victory. Come on now, help me. How many of you seen some victory in your life? I've seen, I've had joy. I have had the blessings of God. I've had God just working in my life in a marvelous way. Then for some ignorant reason, something come on me that wasn't near as large as it had come on me before. And I'll take off running and hide myself in a cave. And I wonder how many of you tonight are in a cave. How many of you tonight are scared half to death in your life right now? Not necessarily because this pandemic though, a lot of people done went crazy over it. But you're a nervous wreck. The devil has convinced you to run from God and run into a cave and hide. Because I want to tell you what our answer is. I, brothers, sisters, I'm ashamed to say this, but there's been some times in my life where I felt like I didn't wanna have a part of anything. Now I know y'all ain't never done that, right? I didn't wanna be around anybody. I was just about half frustrated and all I wanted to do is run from my responsibility and hide myself in some kind of cave. And I wanna ask you, how can we do that when our homes are at stake? How can we do that when our churches are at stake? How can we do that when this nation right now is on the brink? We need to get out of the cave. How many's with me? I'm trying to get to the outline. I'll give you four things and we'll go home. Number one, I want you to notice in verse 10 and verse 14, he had a self-centered pity party. Oh me. Oh my. Can I ask this so I won't feel like I'm the only person that ever had one of them? Any of y'all ever had one of them? I'm just, I'm talking about a self-centered pity party. Amen? Notice his declared action. Now here's what we do when we have our pity party. He did it in verse 10, verse 14. He said, I, even I. You know what he was doing? He said, God, I've been your man. I've been faithful to church. I've paid my tithes. I've been faithful. Why in the world am I in the situation I am in now? And that's exactly what we do. Because you know what our problem is, Pastor Chad? We got an eye problem. Good preaching, Reverend. Oh, not only that, here's what happens when you start having that. You say, you ever had one since you've been pastor here? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. And you have too. And you may be on that edge right now. Not only did he have a declared action, he had disdained association. Look what he said. He was saying, okay, I'm fine. But look what he said. Look at verse 10. And he said, I've been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars and slain thy prophets. Not only did he proclaim I, but he also said, look at all how bad everybody else is. And ain't that what we do? If it ain't us looking at ourself, then we start complaining about everybody else. Why ain't Kim Whittington doing right? Why ain't Stan Saller doing right? Ladies and gentlemen, you can't point your finger at everybody else. You need to recognize your own problem. I'm in this cave, I serve God, and look at how bad they've been. Look how bad Sean's been. Look how bad Brother Winkler's been. Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes, somewhere, we all have to take responsibility for our actions. Quiet in here. That's good preaching anyhow. Then he had what I call a disillusioned loneliness. I'm all by myself. And by the way, let me ask you a question. Was that really true? Was it true? Come on, was it true? Later on in the chapter, God said there's 7,000 that hadn't bowed down to Baal. Ladies and gentlemen, you're not the only one with problems. You're not the only one facing battles. You're not the only one that the devil's trying to chase in a cave. You're not the only one that's having hurt. You're not the only one that's having pain. To be honest with you, a lot of people's having it. And what are you doing here anyway? What are you doing here? Oh, I'm coming, son. Number two, look at verse 11. I'm trying to hurry. Dear Lord, this is good stuff here. I'm enjoying it. I see a supernatural presence. How many of y'all believe that God has our back? How many of you believe he's a supernatural God? A miracle working God? And if there's gonna be a turn in this nation, it's gonna be because God done it. It will not be because of the next president. It'll be because God done it. Look at verse 11. And he said, go forth, stand upon the mountain before the Lord. Amen. An instructional way. He said, now get out of the cave, get out of the dark, quit getting used to the dark. Oh, I better hit that. How many agree we get too used to the dark? Because this world's dark and because it is negative and because it's bad, we ought not to be used to it and we ought not to conform to it. Am I preaching? So I didn't see an instructional way. Then I see, look here what happened. I see impressive wonders. Oh yeah, you saw what happened. The wind came by and shook everything up. And then there was an earthquake and then there was fire. And by the way, how many of y'all agree with me that Elijah would have thought, Chad, because he'd just seen the fire, that maybe God was in the fire. But see, God wasn't in the wind, and God wasn't in the earthquake, and God wasn't in the fire. Somebody help me preach. Now you hear me out, but I'll tell you where God was, in an infinite or intimate whisper. a still small voice. Come on, help me somebody. When is the last time when the whisper of God was louder in your life than the scream of the world? Amen. When's the last time God's still small voice silenced, silenced the noise. I want y'all to hear this. Just because something looks impressive, Chad, doesn't mean it is from God. You know that's what our problem is? We're people that are very emotional and we wanna hear that, we wanna see the impressive. I wanna see the wind and feel the wind. I wanna see the earthquake. I wanna see the fire. And you know what God's saying? I just soon just talk to you and say, Danny, I love you. I'm with you. Kerrigan, I love you, I'm with you. Jeff, I love you, I'm with you. Will somebody say amen right there? Dorsal, I love you, I'm with you. Why is it that we have got to the place in our lives that it's gotta be some kind of thunder and lightning when God sometimes just wants to say Natalie, I love you. Somebody help me preach. Number three, then God had a special purpose. How do you know what to do next, preacher? God had a purpose. Look at verse 15. And the Lord said unto him, go return unto thy way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when thou comest, anoint Hazel to be king over Syria, And Jehu, the son of Neshma, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel. And Elisha, the son of Shaphath, shalt thou anoint to be the prophet in that room. Instead of planning a panic attack, instead of us panicking, how about some of us get back to the purpose of God? Look at me, church. How many of you are in a cave, hidden away, and you're not fulfilling God's will in your life? Somebody help me preach. And as long as you're in the cave, you're ineffective to anybody else. Oh, listen to me. I've been there before. And let me tell you what happens to you when you get there. Dave, you get shut down. Bill, you get shut down. Stevie gets shut down. You quit doing the will of God when you're hiding out. I know that all of us, we wanna run sometime under the pressure we're under, but we gotta get out of the cave. And God told him, here's what I want you to do. Go anoint Hazel, go anoint Jehu, and go get your protege. Here's what God's saying to every one of y'all. Have you forgot your purpose? If God called you to preach, he called you to preach. If God called you to do something, he called you to do something. If God is working in your life, he's wanting you to do something. Amen, he's called you to be a missionary, be it. He's called you to work for God, you do it. Boy, it's quiet in here. Am I doing all right, Chad? Here's what he done. He had a return place. Then he had a responsible process. Now, notice what he'd done. He anointed a heathen king to bring judgment on his own people. And he anointed Jehu to tell his own people that they were getting judged. because of their sin. And then he had a ready protege. You know what God wanted him to do? Is be a mentor. Come up here, Chandler. Come up here, Andrew. You know what God, one of the greatest pleasures, and that's not the only ones, all of our young preachers. You know what God's allowed me to do? Is to be their mentor. To be their example. And let me ask you something. How much of a mentor am I to you and you if I'm hiding out in a cave? How effective am I? If I'm in a cave, I'm sure not gonna get somebody under my wings and be able to be an example because I'm in a cave. And I want you to know this, you hear this, I'm almost done. This is the best part, listen to this. There's somebody that needs you. And you can't help them unless you come out of the cave. Good preacher. And then God had a reliable plan, amen. Then I see a solidified prospect. Look at verse 18, I'll close. Yet I have left me 7,000 in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Abel, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. Amen? God said, I've got some people, that's divine sovereignty. And I've got some dedicated servants. Now listen, the next time the devil tells you, you ain't got nobody there for you, tell him he's a liar. The next time the devil tells you, you're going this alone, Tell him that he's a liar. Somebody help me preach. I wanna say this. I am glad that I got people in this church that when I do get a little bit negative or having a little pity party, which I do occasionally, that I got somebody in the church that will love me, and I'm really not in it by myself, that will hold that rope, that will take care. Somebody raise your hand, glory. How many of you are glad that there's somebody other than you? When you feel like you're all by yourself is when you're gonna be a cave dweller. But when you realize there's 7,000 people that have not bowed themselves to Baal, you'll start shouting it out. I want all y'all to know something. Not everybody has went to the devil, and not everybody has changed their Bible, and not everybody has went to contemporary music, and not everybody's living like a devil. There are still some people that love God! I wanna ask you, if you're here in the auditorium, big crowd tonight for a Sunday night. If you're here in the auditorium and you found yourself hiding in a cave, trying to escape, that's what he was doing. And don't start criticizing Elijah because we all do it. But if you find yourself trying to run away, and hide from your responsibility. Why don't you right now say, you know what? I don't belong here. I don't belong in the cave. I'm coming out and I'm gonna go with purpose and serve God. Bow your head with me. How many of you, Come on, be honest. Have felt yourself kind of hiding away in a cave. Raise your hand. I see your hands. How about us standing and people are already coming and praying? How about you just come on up here and praying? I'm gonna pray. Father, touch this service and this invitation and help us to get out of the cave and serve you.