FBC Daily Devotional – December 30, 2020

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2020, last few days of the year, and I'm sure you're looking forward to bidding adieu to 2020 and saying farewell to 2021.

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Well, we've been talking this week about dealing with life after the tinsel and the garland come down.

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That stuff comes down, but we don't want to come down with it. We don't want to be wallowing in depression and post -holiday blues.

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So is there some help with that? Is there some way we can avoid those post -holiday blues?

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Well, we suggested there are three battlegrounds of depression or the blues, if you will, that we've been talking about.

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Last couple of days, we talked about the battleground of circumstances where because of the circumstances, the door is open to very powerful temptations and the door can be open to the temptation to quit.

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So we want to be aware of those temptations, be aware of quitting, just be faithful, keep on keeping on in the routine of life.

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But another area of battleground is the battleground of our attitudes. And sometimes we struggle with feelings of despair or depression or discouragement because of the attitudes that are behind some things.

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And I want to see an example of this with Elijah, the Old Testament prophet in 1

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Kings 18 and 19. And as we think about this, think about your attitude toward the holiday time, what your expectations are, what you're wanting to see, what you're sure is going to happen and so on and so forth.

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So think about that. So here in chapter 18 of 1 Kings, the celebration comes at the end of the chapter as you remember,

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Elijah had this, lack of a better word, competition with the prophets of Baal, where they set up these two altars and Elijah suggested this and said, let's each put our sacrifice on our altar and we'll pray to our

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God and the God that sends fire down and eats up the sacrifice, that will be the God. And it was, oh, that's great.

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Good, good, good. So the prophets of Baal, 400 of them, they all try to get their God to do something and nothing happens.

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The sacrifice just sits there and starts to rot away while they're doing all this stuff to try to get their

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God to answer. Nothing happens. Elijah, on the other hand, he simply prays to the

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Lord. And when he prays to the Lord, the Lord sends the fire and sends down this great fire that eats up the sacrifice.

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So we read about the celebration of this event in verses 36 to 39 of chapter 18.

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So at that time of the offering of this oblation, Elijah came near and said, oh Lord God of Abraham, here's his prayer of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are

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God in Israel. Prove yourself to be the God in Israel and that I am your servant.

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So not only will the fire coming down demonstrate that you are the God in Israel, but it will also demonstrate that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word,

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Elijah says. Answer me, oh Lord, answer me that this people may know that you, oh

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Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back, that you have turned their hearts back.

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Well, then verse 38 says, the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.

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Just totally annihilated that offering on the altar and the altar itself.

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And so it says, when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, the Lord, that is Yahweh, he is

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God, Yahweh, he is God. And Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape, and they seized them.

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So here in this celebration, God has indeed proved himself. The fire came down from heaven and it proved that God was indeed, that the

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Lord was indeed the God and that there is no other God. And God has further, in this answer to prayer, affirmed

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Elijah's ministry. So he said, this is my servant, these prophets are not, is the clear implication.

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And furthermore, God in this act of eating up that sacrifice has rebuked the enemy.

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So Elijah would just clearly conclude,

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God and I make the majority. God and I make the majority. You and God make the majority.

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If God's on your side, that's all you need to know. This is a conclusion that Elijah came to.

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And that led to some other conclusions. And one of them is that all those false prophets would be killed.

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Well, that's what happened in verse 40. All these other prophets, they were seized, these prophets of Baal, none of them escaped.

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And he brought them down to the brook of Kishon and slaughtered them there. So there is the destruction of these prophets that have led

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Israel into idolatry and taken them away from the

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Lord. But it doesn't end there. Chapter 19, verse 2, Elijah's life is threatened by Ahab's wife, the king of Israel, his wife,

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Jezebel. Jezebel sent a messenger saying to Elijah, so may the gods do to me and more also, if I make not your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.

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And she found out about the slaughtered prophets of Baal, her henchmen. She threatened

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Elijah with execution himself. All right. Here's where the depression sets in.

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So in verse 4, Elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.

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And when he sat down under the broom tree, he determined that it was just as good, it'd be just as well if he were to die.

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Verse 14, he says to the Lord, the Lord says, what are you doing here?

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He says, I've been very jealous for the people of the Lord, for the Lord, for the

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God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, throw down your altars, killed your prophets with a sword.

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And I, even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away, just as well if I died.

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What's behind this depression, if you want to call it that?

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What's behind these actions on the part of Elijah? I would suggest there are two causes and they are his attitudes.

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One of those attitudes was that the victory on Carmel would be an end as God brought the fire down and ate up the sacrifice that Elijah offered and answered his prayer.

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Elijah developed this mindset, this attitude that the victory at Carmel was an end.

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There'd be no more hardship or threats. The prophets of Baal have been defeated. The Lord God has proved to be the

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God. So this is an end to all this Baalism and all of the hardship and threats caused by the idolatry of Israel and the opposition to the righteous prophets.

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You remember it was the prophets of Baal, Baalism and Jezebel with her Baal worship that sought to execute all of the

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Lord's prophets. Well, this should be an end, Elijah thought, assumed.

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That was his attitude. And then the second attitude he undoubtedly had was that the

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Carmel victory was an escape. It was an escape from the bondage of the false prophets and the bondage of that idolatry.

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It's like Carmel was the Holiday Inn experience, if you will. You know that song, the holiday song that comes at Christmas time.

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If you're burdened down with troubles and you got all these cares, then make your escape to the

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Holiday Inn. Come to Holiday Inn. Come to Holiday Inn. Well, Elijah's attitude was that the

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Carmel victory was an end of all the hardship and the threats, and it was an escape from the bondage of the false prophets.

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And this led him to despair because what's happening? It's not an end.

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It's not an end. His life is threatened and it isn't an escape.

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It's very clear that Jezebel plans to reestablish Baalism as the religion of Israel.

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Well, what's the cure? What's the cure? The cure for Elijah is to face reality, to face reality.

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And the reality is that the Mount Carmel experience did prove that Yahweh is

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God, but it didn't lead to a wholehearted revival among God's people, the people of Israel.

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So face that reality. The second step of curing this discouragement on Elijah's part is to seek the

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Lord's presence. And in verses 9 through 13 of chapter 19, the

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Lord encourages him to seek Him, and He comes to him in a very unexpected way, not through the tempest and not through the fire, but through a still small voice.

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And then the third cure is get busy again, get busy again.

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Don't lounge and pout. There's a work to be done. There's a work for the Lord to be done. And in verses 13 through 16, the

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Lord gives Elijah some very specific responsibilities to carry out. So if you find yourself battling with discouragement because you had some maybe unrealistic expectations and those weren't fulfilled, or maybe the expectations brought with them great, great celebration and everything that you thought would make some big changes and those big changes didn't come, well, face the reality.

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Seek the Lord's presence, but then get back to what God has for you to do.

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Get busy again and don't lounge and pout. Carry out the calling that God has given to you.

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So our Father and our God, we realize that our attitudes can affect us terribly in so many ways.

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I pray that you would bring correction to those in our lives and help us, Lord, when we do face that discouragement to seek your presence.

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We will be found of you even in a still small voice. And then Lord, give us the strength, the encouragement, the fortitude to keep on with the work you've given us to do, to get busy again, not allow ourselves to wallow in despair, but to fulfill the calling that you've given us.

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And this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right.

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Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday, and I hope that the rest of the week goes well for you also.

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If you have any plans for New Year's Eve, I trust you'll be safe and have an enjoyable celebration of the new year.