divided into the ten tribes and then of course Judah and the Levites were divided in the other section. At this time you had a wicked king named Ahab. This man was controlled by his wife. We should all appreciate our wives and we believe that many times women are a great help and have great insight. But anytime you have a man controlled by his wife, you've got a problem. And so here we have old Ahab. Jezebel, his wife, her name became a synonym for wickedness and for evil before the Lord. And she, of course, had to meet this prophet Elijah, and she didn't like him. I don't think he liked her, but let's read tonight 1st Kings chapter 18 verse 25. 1st Kings chapter 18 verse 25 and we'll read through the end of the chapter. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, choose you one bullet for yourselves and dress it first for you are many and call on the name of your God, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered, and they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud, for he is God. Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked. You know, we used to hear people say, now don't make fun of anybody's religion. And certainly there's a sense in which that's true. We shouldn't make fun of anybody just for the sake of making somebody unhappy or being unloving or unkind. But there is a time when it is correct to do that. And so Elijah's making fun of these fellows. They've been praying from morning till noon, O Baal, hear us. And the Bible says Elijah mocked them. And he begins to say, maybe your God is asleep, or maybe he's having problems, whatever. And they become more vehement in verse 28. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manor with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday was passed, that they prophesied unto the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice nor any answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be my name. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar as great as could contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces." Of course, that would be a big animal, a bull. and laid him on the wood and said, fill four barrels with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. And he said, do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, do it the third time. And they did it the third time. And the water ran around about the altar, and he filled the trench also with water. 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. And 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 said, The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal, let none of them escape. And they took them, and Elisha brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. First of all, we want to notice the contest. In verse 36, we read, And it came to pass at the time of the evening the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near. And talking about this contest, and it was proposed by Elijah. Elijah said you get the 850 false prophets and they'll have a bullock and they'll put it on an altar on wood They won't be allowed to apply any fire and I'll do the same later on and the God that answers by fire is God Now the first thing I would like to say about that and I've already said it now Let me explain it and I read verse 36 to show you Elijah was a prophet what the point that I'm making is I remember years ago I was in a certain small city and there was a rock and roll band that came and played. I've forgotten the details, but every year they would have some sort of festival or something and this rock and roll band would come and it was rather rowdy, ungodly, Christian people really didn't approve of what went on. And so this preacher in town got up and said that he was going to pray and that God was going to make it rain on the festival. You can imagine where that was in the newspaper. It was on the front page. This preacher says that it's going to rain on the rock and roll festival. It didn't rain. So on the day of the festival, the lead singer of the rock and roll group got up and said, well, we have a beautiful day here. Now, here's my point. Elijah was a prophet. That meant he was qualified to speak for the Lord. The word of the Lord was in him. You and I are not prophets. We have a holy scripture. The holy scripture doesn't tell us that it's going to rain on any certain day. And we have no business making pronouncements like that. And I think in history several times that has been done. Savonarola. In Italy, I think that was back probably during the Middle Ages, I suppose you would say. And Savonarola, he accepted such a contest as this. And I think that's a mistake to confuse ourselves with prophets and with people that have apostolic power. And so this was a prophet. You know, something else I might point out. According to Revelation chapter 13, Satan has power to send fire. And the point that I'm making is this would in a sense have been dangerous for Elijah to do, except Elijah was a man of God, he was a prophet, God spoke to him, he knew what the will of God was, he knew what God was going to do and what God was going to permit and what God was not going to permit. And so we first of all notice this was the act of a prophet. Second of all, we want to notice that in doing this, Elijah was calling the nation back to the covenant that they had made with God at Mount Sinai. I've made this point, and I've mentioned it several times, and it's something you want to remember. The entire Old Testament is based on the first five books of Moses. At Mount Sinai, the nation of Israel entered into a covenant with God. And in that covenant, the Levitical tribe was set aside. They were going to be the priests. They were going to be the servants. They were going to be the teachers. This was God's way. God set up a tabernacle. God set up sacrifices. Here's the point that I'm getting at. The covenant that was made with God at Mount Sinai, there were no prophets. Every time you see prophets in the Old Testament, something's wrong. God is calling the nation back to Him. And so on Mount Carmel, there were no Levites, there were no priests, but God is calling the nation back to Him. And so it was a call back to the covenant. In other words, what is Elijah doing? He was saying, it's time to come back to God. It's time to come back to the promise that you made on Mount Sinai. Time to come back to the 10 commandments. Time for you to gather together as one nation with 12 tribes, not 10 tribes. You know, I used to, you used to hear things like this. And some, even today, if you have religious programs, they've got some other kind of cute name, but I remember, uh, I guess it was Theodore F is that the one he used to have back to the Bible. And always like that, that's a good title, isn't it? Back to the Bible. Well, that's what Elijah was saying, let's go back to the Bible only. He wasn't living under the New Testament, he was living under the Old Testament and he's calling them back to the covenant that they've made with God. And you know, many of us in here today that claim to be children of the Lord and have our members of the church, we've made covenants. And it's good for us to come back to the covenants that we've made with God and remember the things that we've said. I tell you, you read this in the book of Ecclesiastes, it's a foolish thing to stand before God and stand before God's man and make promises and not keep those promises. God, you say, I didn't, I wasn't serious. God was serious. He takes it serious. And so this was a call back to the covenant. This was a call to line up with either Baal or Jehovah. In verse 21, Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Now, I've pointed this out many times, that any time the word Lord is all capitals, it's Jehovah. And so what Elijah is saying is, you're going to worship Jehovah, you're going to worship Baal. You're going to worship the self-existent God of heaven, the God that is infinite? Or you're going to worship these Baals, these nature gods? Who are you going to worship? And so this is a contest between Baal and Jehovah. As we look at the event, and it's just one of those events, I imagine, I know as a little child, When I heard this Bible story, it interested me. I mean, it's just, you know, any type of contest like this. And this is an interesting event. First of all, we have shown the emptiness of the pagan claims, the emptiness of the claims of the false god. Notice verse 25. what took place. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first for ye are many, and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. There were, what was it, 850 prophets. They were divided into 400 and 450. Now this building that we're in, you'd have to cram 400 people in here. So, you got a lot of prophets here. I mean, there'd be standing room, you know, standing room only to get 400 people in this building. And so, you had over twice that number. And they have this bullock, and it's laid on this altar with wood, and they're going to pray and call down fire out of heaven. Let's see what took place. It says, And they took the bullock which was given them, and dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even to the noon. I guess they were getting hoarse. You know, they've been praying, I don't know when it says morning, I don't know what time this started, I don't know if it's six o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock in the morning, but they've been, they were tired of saying Baal, I'm very sure of that. And they're crying out to Baal, O Baal, hear us, O Baal, hear us. It says, but there was no voice, nor any that answered, and they leaped upon the altar which they made. You know, they begin rousing themselves up. You know, I believe in emotion. in religion. I really do. Now we all have different temperaments and sometimes people laugh at me because I have such a laid-back temperament and then you have brother Dubochan and preachers like him they're just and all of them are on Zantax or something you know because that's just their personality you know they're just so mercurial and somebody like me I'm laid-back but with a person is laid back or has that excitable personality. The point is, there is such a thing as emotion, there is such a thing as godly sorrow, there is such a thing as joy, there is such a thing as rejoicing. But let me tell you, Christian emotions are not something we pump up. They're not something that we bring on by some sort of spiritual cheerleading. And so they are carrying on, and in doing this, they're showing the emptiness of their pretensions. In verse 27, it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey or prayer adventure, he sleepeth and must be awake. You know, he says, yell louder. Maybe he's having a conversation and he don't hear you. Maybe he's out chasing a rabbit for dinner, you know. Who knows what he's doing? And Elijah's just making fun of him. Because Elijah worships the true and the living God. You don't have to scream for Elijah's God to hear you. You don't have to jump, you know, up and down and act like a maniac. And so he's mocking them. You say, it's not nice to mock people's religion. But the Bible says, he that saideth in the heaven shall laugh. the Lord shall have them in derision, and one day God will mock the false gods of this world." Then in verse 28, "...and they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed upon them." In many forms of false religion, people have actually cut themselves, and this still goes on today. You see examples of it in India, all types of hideous things that people do to themselves. And it seems to come from the idea that we have sinned and we must make some type of reparation to God and people that don't understand the gospel. And don't understand that Christ died for our sins. They seem to be drawn into this. But God said to His children, He says, You are the children of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. And so the Lord had said in the Old Testament that He did not want His children doing this sort of thing. In verse 29 it says, And it came to pass, when midday was passed, they prophesied unto the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any answer, nor any that regard it. Let me remind you of this. In the Old Testament, certainly this is the great challenge. This is the great example of a challenge between Baal and Jehovah. But do you ever stop and think that as you read the prophets of the Old Testament, there are many challenges? Isaiah challenged the false gods of his day and he said and he said, you know, can you tell the future? Do you ever stop and think the only book in the world with true prophecy in it is the Bible? People they seldom think about that but the Bible is a book of prophecy The Bible is a book. I mean many of the Old Testament prophets have already been fulfilled Many of the prophecies in Genesis were fulfilled in Exodus, you know, there are future prophecies yet to be fulfilled But don't let that cause you To fail to see the many prophecies that have already been fulfilled we were I was sitting in the den with my mother and the History Channel was on and they were talking about I believe it was the city of Tyre and the invasion of the city of Tyre. And I was telling my mother, I said, you see what they're telling you there, how they built that causeway out to the city of Tyre? I said, you go to the book of Ezekiel, all that's described in advance. And so God calls upon the false gods to tell the future. I think I have a book. I may have thrown it away now. come out of the seventies back when Jeannie Dixon was called the Washington prophetess and she wrote a book and it had all these prophecies and you read them now and you laugh. You think my what a mess she made. Of course she sold a lot of books before it all all her claims fell through, but you see the emptiness of pagan claims. And let me say this, that before the final day, the claims, the empty claims of all false gods and all false religions will be manifested. The next thing that we want to notice is that in the plan of God, there was a sacrifice before there was a reign. You know, God was going to show that He was the true and the living God. And so Elijah goes to Ahab, the prophet, and he says, for three years it's not going to rain but at my word. And it's been three and a half years and it hasn't rained a drop. And things are getting sad. Now, here's the interesting thing. All Elijah would have had to do was stand up and say it's going to rain, which he did, and it would have rained and that would have shown something, but in the plan of God there had to be a sacrifice. before there was a rain. And I believe that that was showing us that before God blessed the people, there had to be this sacrifice of Elijah representing what Christ did for us. You know, Christ is our sacrifice. He died for our sins. And the fire that came down In the Old Testament, fire consumed sacrifices, and it always had to be a divine fire. And personally, I believe, and this is just my opinion, that when Cain and Abel offered their sacrifices, how did Abel know that his sacrifice was accepted and Cain knew that his was rejected? I believe fire came out from God and consumed Abel's sacrifice. And I believe this was a picture of the wrath of God falling on Christ instead of falling on our sins. And so before the rain came from heaven, there was a fire that revealed that God had accepted the sacrifice and that there had been payment for sin and the blessings of God could fall. Then we want to notice Elijah's actions. Look, if you will, as Elijah prepares to offer the sacrifice. Notice what took place, verse 30 and 31. And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me, And all the people came near unto him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name." Now, I want you to get this. You know, you can read right over this and miss what's going on if you don't pay attention. Now remember, you had the northern and the southern kingdom. The ten tribes had broken away. When the ten tribes broke away, these two calves were built. Where was that at? Dan and Beersheba? The two calves were placed, and the people of God, instead of going to Jerusalem, would worship before these two calves. Now a long way from where Elijah was on Mount Carmel, you could have gone up to Jerusalem, and there you had the tabernacle and there the true worship of God could be conducted, and there were the priests of the Lord, the Levitical priests. But Elijah's not up there. He's here in the land of Israel on Mount Carmel. But it says that he repaired the altar of the Lord. Now, here's the question. What altar? I don't know. Some have said, well, maybe this was an altar that some of the true worshipers of God had built that were left in Israel, and it was torn up by Jezebel. Or maybe this altar goes back before, maybe this was one of the old altars that the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob used. But the Bible doesn't describe for us and explain, it simply says there was an old altar there. Now, I want you to notice what took place in verse 31. And Elijah took 12 stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be my name." Do you see what a rebuke this is? How many tribes did Ahab rule over? Ten. And they had made two different nations. But when Elijah gets ready to offer, what does he do? He takes twelve stones. Why did he take twelve stones? Because there were twelve tribes in Israel. And what was he saying to all this multitude of people out in front of him? He was saying, God's country doesn't have 10 tribes. It has 12 tribes. And you never should have split off. And you never should be worshiping God at Dan and Beersheba. You're supposed to worship God up at Jerusalem, and the nation's supposed to be 12 tribes. And you've turned away from the Lord. And this is a great rebuke. And you can bet, I mean, I believe if you'd have seen Elijah, he picked up a stone and he said, Two. Three. On and on and on. Then he got to ten and he looked around and he said, eleven. Not ten. That's the number of tribes that Ahab ruled. But he had split the kingdom of God and he'd maintained this split. And then Elijah picked up one last stone and he said, twelve. And he stopped there. This was a rebuke. In verse 32 it says, And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD. Now notice that, Jehovah, all capital letters. He built this altar and he looked out at the people and he said, This altar is not for Baal. This altar is for Jehovah, the God of Israel, the self-existent, the true and the living God. It was built for sacrifice. It says, and he put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces and laid him on the wood. And then I want you to notice what he did. Fill, he said, fill four barrels with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. And he said, do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, do it the third time. And they did it the third time. If you take four barrels and you fill them up three times, how many barrels worth of water do you have? Twelve. So he built an altar out of twelve stones, he took twelve barrels of water, he poured it on there, and what was he saying to the people? God's kingdom has twelve tribes, not ten tribes. And, you know, I wish I'd have been there. I can tell you, I believe when Elijah's picking up them stones saying, one, two, and he gets to ten, and then he looks around at old Elijah and he says, eleven. And I think Elijah's face turned red because he knew the prophet was rebuking him. He knew the prophet was saying, the king of Israel belongs in Jerusalem. And God's nation has 12 tribes. And of course, they dumped that water also for the purpose of showing that there was nothing too hard for the Lord. Then there was Elijah's prayer. Let's notice, you know, I talked this morning about prayer. And let's notice Elijah's prayer. We ought to want our prayers to be heard. You know, if we have children that are unsaved, loved ones, if we want our life to be blessed, we ought to want our prayers to be heard. Notice how Elijah had his prayer heard. First of all, it was a prayer of obedience. Notice what is said in 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, that's Jacob, 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. I've made this point many times. Did God ask the prophets of Baal to worship Baal? No, he did not. Was he going to answer the prophets of Baal who were living in total disobedience? No, he was not. But Elijah, when he stood up to pray for the fire to fall from heaven, he said, The Lord, one thing I want these people to know is that everything I've done and said, it's been according to thy word. You've heard me say before, how do you get your prayers answered? What's the best thing to do? The most powerful thing you can say in prayer? It's this, Lord, you said. Elijah wasn't just trying to put on a big show, but he knew that God had sent him and that this was the will of Almighty God. You and I know only what we can read in the Holy Scriptures. In 1 John 3 and verse 22, we find also that there's a practical part of obedience. 1 John 3 and verse 22, John said this, And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Two things in prayer that we learn here. Number one, you have to ask according to the will of God. Now, for instance, let's take this morning's sermon. You go to God and you have needs. And you say, Lord, I'm hungry. Give me this day my daily bread. Now you've got a promise and a precept for that, don't you? But what if you go to the Lord and you say, Lord, give me this day a gold-plated Cadillac? Now you have no precept for that. So first of all, our prayers must be based on obedience to the word of God. We must know that something is revealed will of God, but there's more to it than just that. The Bible says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And so if we ask, we have what we receive because we do his commandments. You know, one of the things that I've noticed in reading biographies and reading church history, there's just some people who God God just heard their prayer. And I believe one of the reasons you can account why they had such power in prayer is because they were people that lived a life of obedience to the Lord. And may the Lord help that to be true in our life. Another thing that you see in the prayers of Elijah is that he prayed according to the covenant promises of God. Notice verse 36 again. 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 me say this. How do you and I pray today? We pray in Jesus' name. Now what do we mean when we pray in Jesus' name? That's not just something we tack on to the end of the prayer, but when we pray in Jesus' name, what we mean is, Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm not worthy to ask you anything in my own righteousness, but I pray in Jesus' name. In other words, I'm coming to you because your son died for me on the cross, and I'm coming to you through him. Now, in the Old Testament, how did you, if you can understand what I'm saying, in the Old Testament, how did you pray in Jesus' name? You pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You say, what do you mean? Who did the promises come through? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who was told that through his seed the Messiah would come? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so when he prayed to God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, which was the new name that was given to Jacob, what he was saying is, I come to you through the covenant promises. Notice something else in verse 36. When did Elijah pray? It says, and it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. When did they worship Baal? I don't know. Elijah knew and I can tell you what, he didn't care. He didn't operate on Ahab's time, he operated on God's time. And when the time came and the sun came to a certain place in the sky and he looked up and he said, right now in Jerusalem they're offering a sacrifice to the Lord and it's time for evening sacrifice and evening prayers. That's when he called on the name of the Lord. You see what he's doing, how he's rebuking the people, how he's calling them back to the covenant. Twelve stones, twelve barrels of water, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He prays at the time of the evening sacrifice. In other words, he's saying, you people are totally out of line. You're in the wrong church. You know, you got 10 stones, you're supposed to have 12. And you're supposed to be praying to God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not Baal. And he even ties it in with the evening sacrifice. prays through the covenant promises. And then God answers. What an answer. Verse 38, 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. In other words, God said, I accept it all. I'm going to take the sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones. It's all mine. And that was God's way of accepting that. And what an answer that was. You know, God answers prayer today. I don't think that we're qualified and I don't think we have any authority to ask God to do signs. I'm not saying that God never does outstanding, shocking, miraculous things. I'm not, you know, we're not going to put God in a box. But I'm saying as New Testament Christians with a complete Bible, I don't think we have any authority at our will to ask God to do signs. But every Christian knows that God answers prayer. You know, there's prayers in my life. Some of them I couldn't even tell you about, but I was thinking of a thing that God did in my life the other day, and honestly, it's shocking. I mean, there's things that God has done in my life that to me are every bit as shocking as the things that you read about in the Bible. They weren't signs. They weren't done in a public way so that others could marvel and wonder. That's not the ministry that I have. but God still answers prayer. And I hope that you experience that in your own life. This brought about the confession in verse 39. And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. In other words, that's all capitals. They're saying Jehovah is God. Jehovah is God. Ahab's turned red. The prophets of Baal are worried. In fact, notice what happened in verse 10. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape. And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. You say, why did Elijah do that? Because that's what he was supposed to do. In Deuteronomy chapter 13, verse 1 through 5, the Bible gives the instruction on the Old Covenant of what was to happen to false prophets. Deuteronomy 13, If there arise a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereby say, Let us go after other gods which thou hast not known, and let us serve them. Then it goes on, and it says in verse 5, And the prophet or the dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken to turn you away from Jehovah your God. Now, I don't have to tell you, I don't think, since I've mentioned it many times, you and I don't live under the old covenant. The nation of Israel was a theocracy, and in the nation of Israel, crime against God was crime against the state, and these people were rightly put to death. Anybody that tries to do these things in the name of Christianity is perverting what the Bible teaches, but this was the will of God, and this was what was revealed to the nation of Israel. Well, what a And I've said this several times, what a scene this was. Eight hundred and fifty false prophets, a king, part of the royal family, the entire group of the ten tribes, I mean, Carmel was, we call it a mountain, but it was actually a high ridge and people were spread out on this ridge and they're looking at all of this going on and this great contest under the old covenant between God and Baal. False religion is easy, it's popular, and the vast majority of times it's in the majority. But false religion is the most dangerous thing in all the world. Let me tell you something. I would rather be a bartender than a false preacher. I really would. I don't mean I want to be a bartender. I don't mean I approve of any such thing as that. But I'm saying there is nothing so frightening as the idea of leading people away from God. There is nothing so frightening as crying, peace, peace, where there is no peace. Preachers that spend their whole ministry assuring people that they're safe and they're not really safe. I'd rather be a bartender than a false preacher, than a man that doesn't seriously and prayerfully study the Bible and try to preach what the Holy Scripture actually teaches. False religion is, and I've said that many, I've said this many times, false religion is a great thing except for one problem. You have to die. And you have to meet God. In the end, it never pays. And to anyone that is without Christ, you know, I say this, the God of the Bible is the true and the living God. I say that without fear of any contradiction. He is the infinite God. He is the Creator. He's the one that has told the future. He's the one that's done great acts. And I believe this, that a person with a sincere heart, and of course only God can give a sincere heart, I believe you read the record of the Bible and you say, He's the true and the living God.