Sermon Tone Analysis

! Broken Down Altars

 

"He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down."--

I Kings 18:30

 

There is something more than history in the chapter from which my text is taken, just as there is always more in a picture than is seen at first glance.

The state of affairs at this time the chapter opens was as bad as is possible for the human mind to conceive.

The country was in an awful condition because of idolatry,

adultery and all other sins associated with a nation that had forgotten God and was given, unbridled, to all lust and evil desires.

That talk had in it no "as it were", "in a degree", "perhaps", or "in a measure" or "so to speak".

He didn't qualify it by any adjectives; every word had a ring like chilled steel as it cut like a Damascus blade into the putrefying abscesses of his day.Ahab and Jezebel were on the throne.

A more vicious, iniquitous, rotten man or vile woman never disgraced the earth than these two.

Wickedness had the right of way throughout the kingdom; Ahab and Jezebel set the pace and others followed.

There were no depths of iniquity, adultery, licentiousness and vileness to which Ahab and Jezebel did not sink.

Baal was worshiped; true religion was on the sidetrack, and hell had the main line.

It is true that there were a few faithful, like Obadiah and Naboth, who had not bowed to Baal, but they were in a sad minority.

Many had been compelled to hide in cavesand dens.

If it was a woman who dared say she believed in and worshiped Jehovah, she was an outcast and her children were murdered; if it was a man, he was subjected to infamies that no tongue would attempt to describe.

So rampant had idolatry, adultery, and kindred evils had become that in order to try to stem the deadly tide, God sent the prophet Elijah to shut off the water supply and bring on the famine.

As we read the Bible we will notice that always in a dark time God sends a prophet to arouse, stir and call the people back to the true God.

So in this instance, when the situation looked dark, God sent His messenger to warn the people of the judgment which they were bringing on themselves because of sin and iniquity.

The old Tishbite bobbed up before weak-kneed Ahab with all the abruptness of a thunderclap out of a clear sky, and without banners or bands or furbelows or salaam, spoke out in the first breath in a way that brought a deadly pallor upon the cheeks of the miserable wretch Ahab:" As the Lord of hosts liveth..." ( I Kings 18:15)."As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand..." cried the prophet.

that ought to be the preacher's cry ever y time he walks into the pulpit.

That kind of faith makes the devil get up and dust every time!

Such confidence in God as the prophet had as he stood before Him would make granite out of soapstone.

And to know God as Elijah knew Him, and to have the same unbroken sense of His presence, is better preparation for a great career in the ministry than a degree from any college you can name.I am not discounting the value of education.

I consider a mind without education as something like marble in a quarry, which shows none of the inherent beauty until the skill of the polisher fetches out the color and discovers every ornamental vein that runs through the marble.

Education draws out many virtues and perfections which otherwise would never come to the surface and never be seen.

I believe in education, but education alone cannot make character-never!

It takes acquaintance with God to do that.

It takes purity of heart as well as brilliancy of intellect to make one great for God.

But I have no sympathy with anybody who would exclude anyone, educated or uneducated.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God" is as much in force tonight as it was two thousand years ago.

Any man who does that will have a stirring time and will give the devil the best run for his money he ever had.

Nothing was as much needed in Israel as a sweeping revival: and God sent the right man to bring it about.

Let us see how Elijah did it

 

Elijah Was Sensational

He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.

Elijah did his work in a way that was natural but unconventional.

He had backbone.

He wasn't pinned down or dominated by the personality of other men.

He didn't try to add anybody's peculiarities or eccentricities; he had plenty of his own and the nerve to use them, too, and to be himself.

The preacher who is afraid to be like Elijah in this respect will be as weak in his ministry as Samson with his hair cut: he will have no power.

I tell you, whenever God calls a man to preach, He expects him to do it as naturally as he sneezes or snores.

His individuality is to him what the steel frame is to a skyscraper.

And when he surrenders it, he becomes like other people.

Down go his ministerial methods; his candlestick is taken away, and God casts him into the dust of His displeasure.

Lots of us are afraid that we do something sensational.

I have no more patience with such a man than I have with a horse that will shy at a wheelbarrow, or a woman who will go into hysterics over the sight of a mouse.

Everything that Elijah did was sensational; that is why he aroused the country.

If shutting off the water supply, shutting up the heavens for three years so there was not a drop of rain or dew to fall on the earth, wasn't sensational, trot out something that was.

It raised the biggest stir that that whiskey-soaked, licentious, idolatrous, corrupt, godless, blasphemous country had ever seen or had ever recorded; and it made Ahab and Jezebel mad enough, I think, to spit fire.

If you wish to see a dead church awakened, do something out of the ordinary.

There's plenty of Bible authority for not pushing a thing aside just because it seems sensational.

When Noah built the ark and loaded it with strange cargo, that was a sensation.

When Jonah walked down the streets of Nineveh covered with seaweed crying, "Repent!

Repent!"-that was sensational.

Jesus Christ created a sensation when He went into the synagogue at the beginning of His ministry and taught, not as the sribes, but as one who had authority.

GET A LITTLE ENTHUSIASM FOR JESUS!

The preacher who can't preach as one who has authority has no call from God to open his mouth!

Matthew 23 is sensational preaching in words that cut like a razor.

John the Baptist was sensational in what he said as well as in what he did, and in the clothes that he wore; and because he was not like one of the bunch, all Jerusalem and Judaea came out to hear God's lion-hearted preacher hurl anathemas of the Lord into the ranks of sin-high, low, rich and poor!

 

"Why don't people go to church?" is a question always asked.

My guess is that it is because it is too much like going to a cemetery or a funeral parlor.

Put more life in it and you won't have so many complaints.

Many a time the prayer meeting is dead because a corpse is leading it.

When Ahab saw Elijah, he put on a long, prayer-meeting face and with a sort of sanctimonious whine said to him, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?"

The prophet of God came back with an uppercut and old Ahab got it under the fifth rib.

Elijah straightened up like a fire ladder and, with a look that went through that old licentious king like an x-ray, thundered out, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed Baalim."

If that wasn't sensational, show me something that was! Elijah expected results from his kind of preaching.

If some preachers would talk that plain to some of the big sinners on the front seats, we would soon see them begin to crowd the pews.

If your churches are full of men who are working overtime for the devil-working seven days and then doing overtime at night-tell them so!

If you will call a spade a spade, you will hear things begin to rattle like castanets for Jesus Christ.

One reason why there are so few revivals and why religion and morality are at such an awful low tide is because there is so little of the Tishbite kind of preaching done today to the chief sinners who occupy the chief seats in the synagogues.

If Bible results are expected, there must be Bible preaching.

God will honor that, no matter who may do the preaching.

I wouldn't give a rap for preaching which never lets a sinner know he is an old hell-bound sinner.

There is sure to be discontent and disappointment for the preacher who is always shooting with nothing in his gun but bird shot.

When David killed Goliath, he did it because he went against him with suitable ammunition.

He loaded his sling according to the size of the job that he had on hand.

Oh, some would have tried to kill the giant with a little sand in a blowpipe; but you can't do it that way.

David didn't waste any time skirmishing for position; he took dead aim and put enough muscle behind the throw to crack the giant's bean the first throw out of the box.

If he had only meant to wing him, there would have been no mourning in the camp of the Philistines.

Where no definite result is expected, nothing out of the common will happen.

Elijah trusted God to take care of the consequences

 

The next thing we learn about Elijah is-he knew his God well enough to trust Him.

Some of us are so very slightly acquainted with the Lord that we are afraid to do this.

many of us get little help from God because we are afraid to trust Him to do very much for us.

We won't trust Him any further than we have to.

We are like the little girl who said, "I don't have to pray anymore that I won't get scarlet fever because I've got a sulphur bag around my neck."

We won't go any further than we seemingly have to for the Lord.

Elijah had a God who made the ravens feed him.

The widow's oil and meal failed not.

He wasn't afraid of anything that could happen.

So many of us are, and that is why we accomplish so little.

As soon as the Lord told Elijah to go show himself to Ahab, Elijah girded his loins and started out.

He didn't loose a minute considering what great odds were against him; he thought only of the help God would give him to go out and win that conflict.

Think of the help that God will give you to succeed in life, then you will not moan about the tremendous odds against you when you try to live for Jesus and His truth.

Faith says; "Amen" to everything God says.

Faith takes God at His word, without any "if's" or "and's".

Faith says, "I believe it" and rests on that and stands pat for Jesus.

If some of us had had more raven experiences yesterday, there would be more mountains moved for God today.