What to Do When You've Had Enough — Greg Locke

Elijah’s Threat and Despair in 1 Kings 19

First Kings 19 says,. And they have told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with a sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, lest his servants there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree.

And he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, an angel touched him and said unto him, Arise and eat.

And he looked, and behold, there was a cake made on the coals, and a cruz of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. The angel of the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for me.

And he arose and did eat and drink, and went in the streets of that meet forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. Go back to verse number four, if you would, please. First Kings 19, four.

It will be our check. The Bible says,. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. And he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's.

And tonight in First Kings 19, we'll preach on this simple subject, What do you do when you've had enough? Thank you very much. You may be seated. Let's bow our heads in hearts and pray and ask the Lord to bless our time together tonight.

What do you do when you've had enough? Now, my father, I do pray that you would help me tonight as I preach the word of God. I pray that you would help these my friends in this congregation as they listen.

Give us attentive hearts and listening ears to the precious word of God tonight. And I pray, Lord, that you would do something in our hearts that my sermon cannot do. Thank you, Lord, for the good music tonight.

Thank you, Lord, for the fun that we can have, for the fellowship that you've blessed us with. We've had many activities throughout the day, and, Lord, we still have a good bit of an evening before us.

But remove all that from our mind at this time and help us to focus in to the blessed word of God. Speak to us now, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. In 1 Kings chapter number 19, we have an unusual portion of scripture simply because it follows one of the greatest revivals in all of the Bible in 1 Kings chapter number 18.

The Revival on Mount Carmel and the Hand of God

Now, I'm sure you'll remember 1 Kings chapter 18 because as a Bible college student, you have heard many, many sermons on 1 Kings chapter number 18 on Elijah when the fire of God fell there atop of Mount Carmel.

As a matter of fact, when I was in Bible college, we had an evangelist come through and he preached one day on the hot Carmel Sunday. And so I've heard probably just about every title of every sermon that could be preached from the text of 1 Kings 18.

But one thing's evident, no matter who preaches it, how it's preached, and what they title their message, I'll tell you one thing, it was a wonderful revival that turned the heart of an entire nation of people back to the God of the Bible.

I want you to notice, if you would please, the very last verse of 1 Kings chapter number 18, verse number 46. 1 Kings chapter 18, verse number 46, the Bible says, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah.

Now, that's the prophet we're going to be dealing with tonight. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his reins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. So it doesn't take somebody who is an A-plus student in a Bible college to figure out that here's a man who had the power of God.

How do you know that, Brother Locke? I'll tell you how I know that, because the Bible said that he did. It said that the hand of the Lord was upon him. Now, it doesn't say that simply because God ran out of words.

It says that because here's a man who believed God. It says that because here's a man who spit in the eye of the world, spit in the eye of the devil. He turned his back on sin, and with all of heaven behind him, he stood in front of 850 prophets and said, now let me show you, big boys, what my God can do.

And here is a man who performed miracles because he had the power of God. But I'd like to remind you, no matter how old we've been saved, no matter how spiritual we may think that we are, no matter how much Bible knowledge we have, and no matter how full our heart is of the word of God, there are going to be discouraging times in our life.

And here is a man that the Bible arrogantly says in chapter 18 and verse 46 that the hand of God was upon him. He had just been removed from an old-fashioned, heaven-sent, heartfelt, holy-ghost, sin-killing revival, and all of a sudden, because of one wicked woman by the name of Jezebel, he gets upset, he closes his Bible, he packs his dirty duds, he throws them over his shoulder, and he has to get out of town, and he's scared to death over one wicked woman.

And I believe I've met a few women like that in some of my meetings, but nonetheless, here is a man who had the hand of God upon him, had the power of God upon him, but we find him sitting under a juniper tree, stuck in his thumb, wishing that God would heal him.

Now you point toward me, how in the wide world can a man go from chapter 18 to chapter 19 so quickly? I believe I'll show you tonight. Look, if you would, please, at verse number 1 of 1 Kings, chapter 19.

Several thoughts tonight, and we'll be through and be done. The Bible says,. And Ahab told Jezebel, that was the queen of Iran, by the way, Ahab and Jezebel were the most wicked king and queen that Israel ever had known, and they are the ones that took them back in to idolatry and spiritual bondage.

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and with all, how he had slain all the prophets with a sword. Then, when she heard this, then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods, notice he's a pagan, that's a little god, so let the gods do to me and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

So he's sitting down by a brook, having himself a good time, a little Bible study, and all of a sudden across this little PBA, all of a sudden he gets this little email. An email says that Jezebel is going to chop your head off.

He is upset at what you have done to all of the prophets of the grove and the prophets of Baal. He fed those prophets, the Bible said, they ate at her table, they were her friends, he paid them high dollars to be a bunch of liberals and god kickers and Christ interjectors and Bible kickers.

They didn't care anything about the God of the Bible, but she loved them. And now she found out that they're all dead. They were all taken down to the brook, Kishon, the Bible said that he slew them there.

He chopped their heads off and the blood was flowing. And by the way, Lester Olaf said, that's the first nonprofit organization you'll ever read about in the Bible, amen. He took them down there and he killed every single one of them.

And the Bible says that when Jezebel found out about it, she got in a tither and she got in a fancy. She started batting them little knapsacker eyelashes and she said, I'll tell you one thing. I'm going to kill him.

He's dead. I can't believe he has done this to our nation. And so she emailed him, sent a messenger. You understand the context. And he finds out that this lady wants to kill him by that very same time the next day.

And if she doesn't succeed, she is so much against him that she said, I made a little pact with the gods of the land and the gods of the world that I serve. I'll let them do to me and more also what you did to these prophets if you're not dead and I don't have your head on a platter by this time tomorrow afternoon.

Now, this is what your Bible says, please. In verse three, don't miss it. Very important. The Bible says in 1 Kings 19, three. Notice the first little phrase. And when he saw that, I want to give you three simple problems tonight that Elijah had that caused him to be in the discouragement and the despair and the bondage that he found himself in.

Elijah’s Problem with Faith

I want you to write down. Number one, Elijah had a problem with his faith. Elijah had a problem with his faith. Now, that may sound funny to you. And honestly, it sounds very funny to me, because in the chapter before he had all the faith in the world.

You remember, ladies and gentlemen, that Ohad said, OK, we're going to have ourselves a little contest. Now, you talk about home court advantage. He was on their turf. He let them go first. He had a king and a queen against him, an entire group of rebellious Israelites against him and eight hundred fifty Satan worshipers against him.

Now, friend, he had all of those folks against him, but he knew God was on his side and that's all that mattered. And you and God are a majority. And the apostle Paul said, if God be for us, who can be against this?

And the obvious biblical answer is no one at all. And so he stood there at the base of that mountain and he said, you fellas can go first. And the Bible says that from early in the morning until midday, probably about six to twelve, something like that.

These fellas were crying, Oh, bell, hear us, oh, bell, hear us. And the Bible says, but there was no answer. I'll tell you why, because there was no bell. And so they were hollering, hear us, please. Hear us, please.

Hear us, please. Now, here's what your Bible says. Man, I love this. I like Elijah. He had a backbone. He wasn't one of these, you know, jellyfish type of preachers that was scared to preach on sin. You know what the Bible says?

And at midday, Elijah mocked them. Man, I like that. I mean, he mocked them. He put a little straw in his mouth. He looked at them fellas and said, Hey, what's wrong with your God? Is he sleeping? Is he on a journey?

Is he getting something to eat? Maybe his beeper went off. Maybe he's on the other line and he's not paying attention. Hey, where's your God? And that made him even more angry. And the Bible says that they began to pray and they began to prophesy.

I mean, they were screaming and hollering, the Bible says, until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice at six o 'clock in the evening. And these people have been screaming like a bunch of wild banshees and running around like a bunch of chickens with a head call.

And they were screaming and hollering and yelling for 12 solid hours. And the Bible says that they cut themselves with stones. They cut themselves with knives. They cut themselves with lancets. They jumped around.

The blood was gushing out. They were babbling and hollering and yelling and acting crazy and foolish like a bunch of little nursery babies. And nothing happened. Well, you know what the contest was all about.

They cut up the bullets. They put the wood there on and put no fire under. And the God that answers by fire, let him be God. And all the people shook their fists in the air and said, it is well said. It is well said.

And so they prayed. They prophesied. They preached. They hollered. They yelled. They did everything they could for 12 hours. And there was no answer. And all of a sudden Elijah said, now let me show you what my God can do.

And you believe anything you want to about that Bible sitting in your lap tonight. I don't think he doubted Jehovah God for one moment. He knew God could send fire anytime he wanted to. And so he got down.

And what 12 hours of praying could not do for a false God, 64 words to the thrice holy God of the Bible got done just like that. And the Bible says the fire of God fell out of the sky. It licked up the sacrifice.

It licked up the brick. It licked up all of the water. You study your Bible. You will find there was 12 gills of water that was poured over that thing. And there had been a drought for three years. And water was the most precious commodity of the day.

And so here this water was all licked up. It was licked up in the trench. Everything was burnt up. And more than that stuff being burnt up, the hearts of the people melted. And they fell on their faces.

And they had a revival. And they said, the Lord, he is the God. The Lord, he is the God. And those people were revived. And they saw God as they had never seen him before as the God that can send fire, the true God of the universe.

And that's when he took those prophets down there and killed every one of them. And you'll be hard-pressed. You'll be hard-pressed to show me anywhere in 1 Kings 18 that his faith wavered. He was a man who believed God to the fullest in chapter 18.

But he finds out that one wicked woman is out to get him. He finds out that one crazy lady by the name of Jezebel wants his head on a platter. And the Bible says right here in verse number 3,. And when he saw that...

Now, wait a minute. In chapter number 18, he did not live by his sight. He lived by faith. He believed God. He trusted God. He relied on God. But the moment things got fixed, and the moment the money went out of the bank, if you will, and the moment it seemed like God was hiding himself, he went from living by faith to living by sight.

He took his eyes off the God of the Bible and put them on his circumstances. And that was his first problem. And the Bible does not say that he trusted in God, and he fell on his face and said, Lord, deliver me from these circumstances.

The Bible emphatically says,. When he saw that he had a problem with his faith, he began to be a man. He was a prophet, a man with a power of God, who began to live by sight and not by faith. Now, here's what the world says.

The world says seeing is believing. So that's not biblical. The biblical mindset is this. Believing is seeing. We do not understand and then obey. We obey so that we may scripturally understand. That's why the Bible says in Hebrews 11, 6,.

For without faith it is impossible, not improbable, not some can, some can't. It is impossible to please God. For him that cometh to God must first believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The book of Habakkuk, the book of Galatians, and the book of Romans all say three times in the Word of God that the just shall live by faith. And here's a man in chapter 18 who believes God. I mean, he had faith.

I mean, I'm not talking about mustard seed faith either. I mean, this guy had watermelon faith. He believed God. He said God's going to send the fire. There's no doubt about it. I'm not going to doubt.

I'm not going to waver. The fire is on its way. I can feel it burning my brow right now. And guess what? The fire came and God was glorified. God was uplifted. And God was honored. But in the very next chapter, when one little thing went wrong in Elijah's life, he stopped living by faith and began living by sight.

You know, it's a very easy thing to do as a child of God. The problems get against you. You look at the newspaper. You go to your box and maybe you're expecting some money when you're in Bible college.

And then you've got a bill that seems to be just insurmountable. There's no way you can get through this year. There's no way you can get through this semester. And a lot of times we're just like the children of Israel.

You know how I know that? Because God pays every bill right on time. And by the way, you won't have an unpaid bill that belongs to God. He takes care of your bills. He takes care of your health. He takes care of your family.

He takes care of every little incidental need. And the very next month when the bills come, and the school bills do, and you've got to put gas in the car and groceries in your belly, we're just like the children of Israel.

And we forget all about the blessings of the month before. And we fall out of pieces. And we couldn't live them by faith. And we begin to live by sight. When I was coming up here today from the airport, I was listening on the radio, and this guy was talking about Noah's Ark.

And, you know, out in Turkey, in the mountains, Turkish mountains, wherever it is, whatever it is. And here's what he said. He said, you know, he was a liberal, he was a skeptic. He said, you know, he said, I would believe the Bible if they actually found that big wooden boat.

So that's what the man said. I would believe the Bible if they would actually find that big wooden boat. Now I'm going to say something. They could find the big wooden boat, and they could park it over in a trailer park behind my trailer, and it would not increase my faith one bit.

Because I don't have to have the boat to believe God. I've got a Bible to believe God. And if the Bible says God will take care of me, then I promise you God will take care of me. Now, by the way, if they ever did find Noah's Ark, I thought about this too.

Then Benny Hinn and one of these other crooked birds on television would get a couple of splinters of it and try to sell them for about $25 a piece. I've got a splinter of Noah's Ark. It'll be your point of contact for the floods and the storms of life.

And if you send me $29 .99, I'll send you a splinter of Noah's Ark. Hey, I don't need a splinter of Noah's Ark. I need to get my nose out of the newspaper and put it in the Word of God and learn to trust and believe and rely on Almighty God.

And here's a man who began to look at his circumstances through freshly eyes, through human eyes, rather than through the all-seeing eye of the God of the Bible. And his first problem was a problem with his faith.

Now, if you want to have a miserable summer, if you want to have a horrible, wretched summer, you just look at all the circumstances, you just look at all the problems, and you just look at everything in life through your eyes rather than simply trusting in God.

Hey, if God said He'll take care of you, I promise you, friend, God will take care of you, both physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually. When are we going to learn as God's people to simply trust in God?

I said that one night in the church. Matter of fact, I thought maybe I was even preaching this message. And I preached, and all I said was this, God's people need to learn to simply trust God. And a man came to me after the service, and he said, brother, I understand what you mean.

He said that that sounds just real simple and real generic. Duh! It's supposed to be real simple and real generic. It doesn't have to be hard to believe God. God promised in His Word that He would meet our every need, and therefore, He'd be a liar if He did not.

And I know what my Bible says in Titus 1 -2. God cannot. It's not that He will not. It's that His character will not allow Him to. God can not lie. Therefore, I do not need to go through life with the bifocal problems and circumstances on, but I need to not see the problem.

I need to believe God in the problem. So His first problem was the problem of faith. But go back in your Bible if you would, please. I want to show you something else in verse 3. And when he saw that, that's his faith wavering, he arose, now notice this, and went for his wife and came to Beersheba, which belonged to Judah, and left his servant there.

Elijah’s Problem with Fear

You probably know the outline already. Number one, he had a problem with his faith. Number two, he had a problem with fear. He was afraid. I mean, he was afraid of Jezebel. And you can imagine. I mean, here's a lady who had a lot of gunpower, if you will.

Here's a lady who had armies and militaries and tanks and the whole nine yards. Here was a lady that could annihilate him. But yet in the chapter before, when he was right with God, when he was filled with the Spirit, if you will, when the hand of God was pressing mighty upon him, he was not afraid of anything.

He wasn't afraid of 850 wicked satanic prophets. He wasn't afraid of Ahab. He wasn't even afraid of Jezebel. He wasn't afraid of all those Israelites that could have run his scrawny little neck. He was not afraid because he knew God was on his side.

But the moment things began to fall apart in his life and the moment he quit believing God, which, by the way, was the main reason he had the discouragement because he quit living by faith. And that's where all of our discouragement stems from.

When we stop trusting God and we get out of the Word of God and we begin to see our problems ourself rather than believing God. That was his first problem. And because he had a problem with his faith, he now has a problem of fear.

He's scared to death. And the Bible says he gets himself up and he runs out into the wilderness, afraid that Jezebel is hot on his trail and she's going to kill him. Dr. John R. Rice wrote a book one time, obviously for the story of the Lord.

And here's what he said. And I've never been to the Bible in Calvary, but I trust what the man said. God be there. He said there are 366 fear nots in the Bible. And that's a lot of fear nots. Three hundred and sixty six fear nots in the Bible.

That's right. Sometimes 30 man counts. He said the reason there are 366 is because there is one fear not for God's people for every day of the year. And God threw in an extra one for leap year just in case.

And I'm going to take some friends. We don't have to fear. You think I'm going to live in constant fear of the liberals and the modernists and the ACLU? I'm not worried about that crowd. I'm not worried about what that crowd thinks about me.

I could care less what anybody thinks about me, much less the liberals and the modernists and the devil's crowd. And we get so uptight about the things of life. We fear so many things. We fear that, you know, we're not going to be accepted by certain people.

You know, we fear that God's just not going to come through as if he's come to the place where he's failed us and left us hanging and dry before. And here's a man who had some fear. God's people need not fear.

God's people, the Bible says, have not been given the spirit of fear, but of awe and of power and of a sound mind, according to the Bible in 1 Timothy. And we do not have to fear the storms of life and the hardships.

And when the bottom falls out and when the trials and the temptations come, there's no need to fear. And there's no need to waver in our faith. Just simply believe God. You remember the apostle Paul in Acts chapter 27?

Here he was out on a boat being tossed around like a toothpick in a bathtub. I mean, this guy had some problems. By the way, one of the big reasons they had those problems and one of the big reasons that they were in that storm is because the apostle Paul jumped up on the deck of that ship and said, Fellas, I told you, you should have never loosed from Crete.

And their first problem was, they wouldn't listen to the admonition of a man of God. And oh, how many times I've talked to people in churches who get in the shipwreck of life because they won't listen to the old fuddy-duddy preacher in the pool pit because they think they know more than the preacher and they think they know more about the Bible than God did when he wrote it.

But the apostle Paul said, You should have listened to me, but since you didn't, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. He got out there and I mean, he was trying to encourage those people. They were just about jumping off the sides of the ship.

They were scared to death. All the prisoners were going to have to be set free. And the apostle Paul stood up and bowed his back and said, Fellas, just quiet and I'll tell you something. He said, There stood by me this night an angel of God, whose I am and whose I serve.

And he told me that there'll be no loss of any man's life on this ship, only of the cargo. And then here's what the apostle Paul said. Brethren, men, I believe God. You know, if we could live by those words right there, we'd have a whole lot of our problems licked hands down.

You'd have a whole lot better summer, Mr. Ma 'am, if you would just live by those few words. I believe God. By the way, people that believe God, people that are Bible believers are the outcasts of society.

You believe what you want to, but the farther we get into this thing as far as serving the Lord and the deeper in the cesspool and the tides of iniquity that America goes, we're going to look more and more like the oddball every day, every hour, every week, every month and every year.

And they're doing their dead level best to shut us up every single day. But I know I want to be. I believe God. And as Peter said, hey, we're going to obey God rather than man. And he was a guy who had a problem with his faith.

He just didn't believe God the way that he should because of problems. And because he didn't believe God, now he's fearful. But he's scared. He's like a little boy holding up under that juniper tree. He's shaking and he wants to die.

Elijah’s Feelings of Failure and Exhaustion

Now notice what he says. Here's an interesting thing in verse four. But he himself went a day's journey. So he left his servant and he said, you got to stay here. I got some business to do. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree and requested for himself that he might die and said, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's.

Number three, he had problems with failure. Elijah honestly believed he was a big fat failure. I mean, just a complete zero with a circle rubbed out. He thought he was a nobody. He said, Lord, I'll tell you something.

He said the generation before me was a bunch of losers. And he said, I'm no better than the losers before me. He said, my father's didn't accomplish anything for God. And he said, I am no better than my father's.

Now here's an interesting study for you sometime. There are four men in the Bible. I'm not going to have time to preach on. There are four men in the word of God that sat down under a tree. And several of those, I believe, if my memory and Bible study serves me correct, were juniper trees.

Now, I want you to study this sometimes. Interesting. The four men who sat down under a tree were all discouraged for several reasons, but all four of them had one thing in common. They were physically worn out.

Now, I know we all think we're peripheral super people sometimes, and I'm bad about that. Like I can just go, go, go, go, go and never, ever stop. But I'll tell you something. The time the devil's going to hit you most this summer is when you're physically worn out, when you're tired.

I know we like to have fun. And I know we like to fellowship. And I know you spiritual folks like to play all night, read your Bible all night, stuff like that. But you're going to have to have some rest this summer.

You're going to have to learn to sleep and learn to regulate your time. And you're going to have to be disciplined, have some character and get on a schedule because the devil will not shoot at you when you are doing your best and your finest.

And you're at your strongest hour for Christ. He's going to get you when you're under the juniper tree. He's going to get you when you get a phone call or an email or a letter. And he's going to get you when something goes wrong, when your chappers won't listen, when the teens are just eating on your nerves so bad, you just want to beat them all up.

And I mean, he's going to get you when you're tired. So get your rest. We're not super people. God doesn't expect us to be super people. I know these folks, they say, well, I'll tell you one thing. I just never sleep.

I always live for God. Well, the Bible says the Lord gives his beloved sleep. And I want to be one of his beloved. And I like to think that I am. And so I need some sleep every night. And I know when my body gets physically tired and I get mentally worn out, that is when the devil fights me the most.

And that's when the temptations come down the bowling alley for him. And so be careful because here's a man who began to struggle with his faith. He began to struggle with fear and struggle with feelings of failure because he was physically worn out.

He had been in a revival meeting that exhausted him. He had run for a couple of days, then left his service, ran for several more days into the week, and he sat down and said, God, I'm so tired. I don't even want a love offering this week.

Just heal me and take me to the kingdom of God. And he got to the place where honestly, Elijah, honestly believed that he had never accomplished anything for God. Now, I do not believe that God wants us to go around with our, you know, lips dragging.

He don't want us to go around with our mouth hung over like a bunch of old dirty shoelaces and be mean and sour, look like we've been sucking on lemons and Cypress Simmons and drinking vinegar through a PVC pipe and stuff like that.

He don't want us to be like that. He wants us to enjoy him. He wants us to be excited. But you know, sometimes God does put us in a corner and he gets us to the place where he heats up the fiery furnace hotter than it's ever been heated before.

He puts us in the mouth of the lion's den with a starving, hungry lion. And sometimes he gets us to a place where we're backed in a corner, our hands go up, and we have to realize before we can ever be used of God that we are nothing, and without Him, we are big failures.

And we need the power of God that I preached on the other night. And we need the Word of God. And we need our rest. And we need the times when God breathes upon us and gives us seemingly new life and revival.

That's what revival is all about. That's what my ministry is all about. Not going around selling a bunch of Bibles and selling a bunch of tapes. Whoopie ding, big deal. You know, they're going to all burn up.

No big deal about selling tapes. My ministry is to go around the country and see people saved by the grace of God and those that are saved, see them revived and see them encouraged. Man, I was reading the other day with a good pastor friend of mine a couple of weeks ago on our tent meeting.

We got up one morning and we decided we were going to read the story of Joseph. And we were reading about Joseph and things like that. And the Bible says that when Isaac found out that Joseph was still living, you know what the Bible says?

And his spirit revived within him. That is what my ministry is consumed with. That last week, that this week, and that all summer long, your spirit would be revived within you. Hey, for without me, Jesus says, John 15, 5, the end of the verse, you can do nothing.

And it means just as much that tonight as it did when the ink pen of inspiration ran out at the end of that verse. We need Him or we are failures. You're not going to be able to lead all of your campers to Christ this summer.