Life of Elijah - Part 3 — Major Ian Thomas

A beautiful day makes me homesick for England. I don't like the vulgar way you laugh. We have a day like this every summer in England. Elijah, God's friend, back in the first book of Kings and the 18th chapter, you do as you're told because you've been told what to do, even the birds will feed you.

Elijah’s Obedience and God’s Glory

But Elijah also discovered that if you're told what to do and do as you're told, the fire will burn, even when the wood is wet. And remember that when the fire fell, nobody thumped Elijah on the back.

Nobody came up to him and said, man, you're right. They said, the Lord, he is God. They recognized there was only one person to congratulate. They couldn't ever have credited Elijah with what happened, only God.

And we are to be to the praise of his glory. What Paul meant was that others should look in our faces and having done so, they say, isn't Jesus Christ marvelous? This is the fantastic privilege that you and I have been given in our Lord Jesus to allow him now to be to us all that he then allowed the father to be to him so that others in the son could see the father so that now others in us can see the son.

The Lord, he is God. We should leave other folks unshatterably convicted and convinced of that fact. And Elijah said to Ahab, verse 41 of the 18th chapter, get me up, eat, drink. There is a sound of abundance of wrath.

He said to the king, you better have your lunch. Because the chances are in a very short time, you'll have to hurry. Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of the Mount Carmel.

He cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up and looked. And he said, there's nothing. Said Elijah, go again seven times.

Came to pass at the seventh time, which is the number of divine completion or perfection. It's a very simple way of saying, let God take his time. Give him room. Give him time. Just let him be God. You can never manipulate God.

You can't twist his arm, no matter how loud you shout. Because he isn't deaf. I told you yesterday, praying isn't a gun at God's head. You're needed at his feet. And only are we safe when we give him time and space to do things his own way and in his own time.

Came to pass at the seventh time that the servant came back and said, behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand. And immediately then, Elijah said, go up, say to Ahab, prepare thy chariot, get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.

Trusting God for Guidance

Hurry, or you'll get wet. It's a very simple principle they enunciated. We won't dwell upon it, but just throw it in as it were in parentheses. A lot of folks, you know, a little concerned about guidance.

How do I know the mind of the Lord? Well, the promise that God has given us, as all of you know in Proverbs 3, 23, trust in the Lord with all your heart. That's where it all begins. A heart relationship.

And you know what your heart is. It's your soul, your mind, your emotions, and your will, your behavior mechanism. And you trust God with that behavior mechanism. If you trusted somebody with your car because they needed transportation, on what basis would you trust them?

Well, your confidence in their competence to drive. If you didn't believe they could drive the thing safely, you wouldn't trust them with it. The fact that you placed the car at their disposal is an evidence of your confidence.

And having trusted them with your car, what do you expect them to do with it? Don't say, you know, don't wreck it. Because if you thought they were going to wreck it, you wouldn't trust them with it. Trust in that there is inherent the expectation that they're competent.

So once you've trusted them with your car, all you expect them to do is drive it. Nothing more complicated than that. And when you trust God with all your heart, what do you expect them to do with it?

Drive it. That's all. Just assume that he's intelligent enough to take over the controls, sit in the cockpit and keep the thing airborne. In other words, by his indwelling Holy Spirit, teach your mind.

By his indwelling Holy Spirit, control your emotions. So that through your mind and emotions, he'll direct your will and thus govern your behavior. So that what you do then will be a valid expression by what you do, say an R of his mind, his will and his purpose.

And of course, then God behaves and that's righteousness. God in action. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not onto your own understanding. Don't consider yourself smart enough to grapple with the situation, come up with the right answer because you don't have all the facts as God does.

You don't know the end from the beginning. The base upon which we normally make decisions is the experience of the past, which may be totally invalid so far as the circumstance of the present is concerned.

Those factors that you know that concern the immediate situation, which may be inadequate, incomplete or inaccurate. And the foreseeable future, and that's anybody's guess. No wonder we make lots of blunders.

We make our decisions on the basis of the experience of the past, circumstance of the present, foreseeable future. Of all of which we're hopelessly and inadequately informed. But we have a God who knows exactly how the past relates to the present.

He knows every detail of the immediate circumstance and knows the end from the beginning. And that's why when you let him run the show, you always land on your feet when other people are standing on their heads.

And the Bible simply calls that living miraculously. It isn't sensational, it isn't spectacular, it's just a miracle. God doesn't ask you as a Christian to be either sensational or spectacular, but he does demand that your life be miraculous, that's all.

And that'll do. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not unto your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him. What will he then do? Direct your prayers. Do you have to ask him to do so?

No, don't waste your time. You don't keep on asking God to redeem you, do you? If you do, it's about time you quit. Because every time you ask God to redeem you, you're calling him a liar. Because the moment you exposed your need, placed at his feet and looked in his face and said, thanks, he redeemed you.

And sealed you by his indwelling Holy Spirit for eternity. And he says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And you have entered into the rest of faith. And the rest of faith regarding your reconciliation to God is evidenced by the fact that you thank him that you are redeemed.

That your name is in the Lamb's book of life. And that you will never perish and nobody will ever pluck you out of his hand. Is there any less integrity in the promise of God who has declared that he will direct you if you acknowledge him in all your ways and that he'll redeem you if you trust Christ as your saviour?

Why do you ask him for one and say, thank you for the other? If it's no less true that he'll direct you every step of the way, if you'll acknowledge him in all your ways and trust him with all your heart and not lean to your own understanding, so long as you're prepared to fulfil the moral obligation, thank him.

That he isn't the process of directing your paths. He said he would. The Psalmist puts it this way. Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in him. He will bring to pass. Literally, he is in action.

He is handling it. Now if you commit a situation to somebody's hand who's never been known to fail in that particular situation, how much would you panic and how much would you be concerned, how much would you worry?

Well, you wouldn't. Somebody else might on your behalf. They come to you. Aren't you frightened? You say no. Why no? He's handling it. Anything else you need to know, if he's competent to do the job? Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in him.

He's handling it. That's why two verses later, the eighth verse of the 37th Psalm, Mark the 7th, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Wait patiently for him. To vindicate his integrity. So never ask God for guidance, a waste of time.

Take care of your moral relationship and he is guiding it. On that basis, don't claim, of course, infallibility because your faith, your disposition isn't perfect. But simply assume that God is doing exactly what he says.

He is directing your path and when you have to make the decision, make it. On the best available evidence, on the assumption that he, by his Holy Spirit, is teaching your mind, controlling your emotions, so directing your will that he'll govern your behavior.

Having made the decision, somebody's called you, they say, I must know now, you give the answer. You put the phone back to where it belongs and pace up and down, wonder whether you made the right decision.

Is that right? Have a post-mortem. Oh no, nothing like that. You simply say, Lord Jesus, you said that if I acknowledged you in all my ways, allowed you by your indwelling Holy Spirit through whom I share your life right now, as you clothe your deity with my humanity, I made the decision on the best understanding that I had of the situation on the assumption that you're doing exactly what you said you would do, direct my paths, teach my mind, control my emotions, direct my will.

So thanks. Now, I'm pretty stupid and thick-skinned and if I haven't got the message absolutely right and I'm off to the right, shove me to the left. If I'm off to the left, shove me to the right. If I'm that stupid and committed such a boob that I've got all my wires crossed, cancel that and start again.

You're still directing my path. And that's the rest of faith. It doesn't mean that you're infallible, but it means somebody's on the job whom you're trusting to keep you in spite of your stupidity and your thick skin and thick head in the right place.

And he said he will do it. Now, I just want you to notice the little sequence of events that occurred here. First of all, what did Elijah say? There is a sound of abundance of rain. Was it raining? No.

Well, what did he hear? Nothing. It was simply one way whereby Elijah said, I've got a deep conviction that the moment is coming when God is going to end the drought. But did he act on that inner conviction?

No. No. You may have a deep inner conviction, but wait. Wait. What are you going to look for next? Some simple external evidence. So he sent his servant, go up, look toward the sea, and he came back and said, nothing.

And Elijah did neither despair nor put the bit in his teeth and take over. He said, no, seven times. Second time, nothing. Third time, nothing. And what is Elijah doing in the meantime? Waiting. He's got a deep inner conviction, but he's waiting for some tangible evidence from God that he's in the right direction.

Then on the seventh occasion, there was just a tiny cloud in the sky, a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand. And God gave that first tangible evidence that a deep conviction was on course. So he waited and then he acted.

And immediately sent his servant and said, Elijah, hurry and take your umbrella in case you get caught in the shower. What do you do after that? Get on his hands and knees and plead for rain? No, he relaxed.

He relaxed. And there was a divine fulfillment. That was the simple sequence of events. Wait, act, relax. And then let God demonstrate that he's in charge, vindicated integrity. Came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.

The hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel and Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and with all how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

850, then Jezebel sent a message to 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 you'll hardly believe that.

Elijah’s Despair Under the Juniper Tree

He arose and went for his life. A man who could stand unashamed, unafraid in the presence of the king and proclaim a drought, thus saith the Lord. A man who could stand alone on the mount, surrounded by 850 idolatrous priests, a wicked king and a hostile, sullen crowd, unafraid, unashamed.

At the threat of this painted hussy fled for his life. Within 24 hours he was on the run. Can you imagine that? Aren't you glad God put that in the Bible? Because you see we have a completely false connotation of those who have been such mighty men and women of God in the unfolding course of God's timeless plan.

It's always a great comfort to me to know what a bunch of stupidities those disciples were before finally the penny dropped and something penetrated their thick skulls. Some of your teachers or preachers or Bible class leaders, as many of you are, and you get discouraged because so little of what you say penetrates those to whom you speak.

Take courage, because I've got good news for you. Nobody had a duller Bible class than Jesus Christ. He taught them for three solid years and nothing penetrated. Isn't that incredible? And finally, having warned them again and again of what exactly was going to happen, he'd go to the city of Jerusalem and they'd be delivered into the hands of wicked men and be done to death.

Peter said, not so, Lord, that's not going to happen to you. But when it happened, they fled as the Lord Jesus had warned them, like frightened sheep while they smote the shepherd. What a bunch. And as I reminded you, was it yesterday when the women came and said he's alive?

They said, idle tales, go home, take six aspirins and have a good night. You'll be better in the morning. What a bunch. It's kept me preaching for 50 years. It's one of the reasons why I accepted the invitation to come and talk to you folks, because I thought to myself, you couldn't be worse than that lot.

And yet when something happened, they rediscovered Christ and the power and fullness of his resurrection. They let all God loose and evangelize the then known world in one generation. Turn the world upside down, change the face of nations.

What couldn't he do in your availability and mine to his divine action? Not what we could do for him because it's nothing. Hope you're not doing your best for Jesus. Because that's an exercise in stupidity.

The Lord Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. So if he did the best, how much would it be worth? Nothing. And certainly if you're trying to get to heaven by doing your best, God help you. Because even if you couldn't, you can't.

Have you ever done your best? Isn't that a stupid thing to say? I'm doing my best to get to heaven. Even if you could get to heaven by doing your best, you'd never get there because you've never ever done your best.

You wouldn't dare stand up and say, as I look back over my life's history, there's not a single situation which I couldn't have bettered my performance. Would you dare say that? Well, if you think you're getting to heaven by doing your best, stop playing the fool and discover how you get to heaven.

And when you've discovered that, you'll come to somebody who said, I am the way. Nobody comes to the Father but by me. We're so slow to learn because we listen without hearing. And that's why I'm glad God puts this in, as he did those many other occasions, when those who were, humanly speaking, spiritual giants, evidenced the weakness of the common clay, which they were fashioned, as were you and I.

He went for his life, came to Beersheba, left his servant there, and he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, verse 4, and came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die.

And that was pretty stupid, too. He could have stayed behind and Jezebel would have taken care of that. He said, it is enough, I'm through. Now, Lord, take away my life. I am not better than my father's.

God probably said, who said you were? Who's been kidding you? For how long have you been kidding yourself? Elijah under a juniper tree. Isn't that incredible? When a man sits under a juniper tree and says, I only am left, he's either on the verge of a nervous breakdown or he's got too big for his boots.

And it doesn't matter whether a man is suffering from shattered nerves or a swollen head. From that moment, he's useless to God or man. Where was the chink in his armor? How could this have happened to a man like Elijah?

Well, I deliberately omitted one verse in the preceding chapter. Look back to the 22nd verse of the 18th. It was the occasion when Elijah had called the 450 prophets of Vale and the 400 prophets of the groves.

And addressed himself in their presence to the crowd. Elijah said unto the people, verse 22, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord. That was the chink in his armor. The folly of feeling indispensable.

I only am left. And God said, I got news for you. I've got 7 ,000 in reserve. You and I are never indispensable to God. No individual, no movement, no organization. There's no single institution in this world that can say, God has imposed upon us the burden of evangelizing this world to the finish.

Those people are deceiving themselves. Any individual who behaves that way is deceiving himself. God doesn't need any champions. We are never indispensable to him. He is always indispensable to us. This was the chink in his armor.

I only am left. And when a man considers himself to be indispensable to God's timeless purpose, then he will soon be crushed by the burden of his own self-imposed. Nothing in all the world quite so abysmally pathetic as a man preoccupied with his own importance.

And that was the problem with Elijah. Quite a number of years ago, I was invited amongst others as our each year faculty speaking at the Torrey Memorial Bible Conference in Los Angeles, based upon Biola.

They invite folks from different parts of this country and other parts of the world, and they not only have the meetings on campus, but they have meetings in various local churches within a hundred miles radius.

And on that particular occasion, one of the faculty was Dr. Walter Wilson, who's now with Christ, whose name some of you may well know, for he wrote some very excellent books that are still available.

And he himself, though a medical doctor, was the pastor of a very gigantic church and founded a Bible school, all of which were of excellent spiritual substance and caliber. And he was one of the panel of speakers.

And because of his ministerial experience, they invited him to speak at a luncheon for pastors who had been invited, some 300 of them. And in the course of his address, he echoed many of the principles that I have been seeking to share with you in these few hours.

And he was talking about this stupidity of being self-important. He said there was an occasion when I invited the pastor of another church, enormous, a real empire that a man had built around himself.

And he invited the pastor of that church to occupy his pulpit. And he explained to these pastors at luncheon, he said the man replied that he would very much enjoy the opportunity and appreciated the kindness of my invitation.

But he regretted that in his absence, there was nobody that could ever occupy his pulpit. And so he had to decline the invitation. So Dr. Wilson told the assembled company, I got in touch with him, I asked him for how long he'd been ministering in that church family, of many, many, many thousands.

He said 27 years. And then Dr. Wilson said, I asked him during that 27 years, as a conservative estimate, how many would you consider among the men had been consistently under his ministry for at least 10 years?

And as a conservative estimate, the man replied some 600 out of the thousands in his congregation had been consistently under his ministry for 10 years. So Dr. Wilson then said, well, if you've been pastor of that church for 27 years, you have 600 men who've been consistently under your teaching for 10 years, and there's not yet one single person that can occupy your pulpit in your absence.

Then quite obviously, your ministry has been abysmal failure. And if I were you, I'd resign. And within three weeks, he did. And when he resigned, he was right. The folly of feeling indispensable. And as he lay, verse 5, and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him and said, breakfast is served.

God’s Kindness to the Discouraged

This is the kindness of God. Here's a man at the end of his rope. He's on his back. He's at the moment of despair. The very threshold of quitting. Have you been there? And God sends his angel and feeds him.

He looked and behold, there was a cake, bacon on the coals and a cruise of water at his head. And indeed, and he drank and he laid him down again and slept. It wasn't long before the angel tapped him on the arm and said, dinner is served.

The angel of the Lord came the second time and touched him and said, arise, eat. The journey is too great for you. Isn't that kind of God? You remember what it says in the 42nd chapter of Isaiah and the third verse?

A bruised reed. He will not break. Nor quench the smoking flask. That's the kindness of God. There will be occasions in your life when you'll find yourself on your back and I may be talking to somebody right there now.

Coming to this conference may have been your last fling. Deep down in your heart. You've been saying if there isn't something more to the Christian life and the rat race that I have known. Then I find no option but to quit.

That's always possible. I've never spoken to a group, a group like this where there isn't somebody in that area. And if it hasn't happened yet, chances are that soon will. Unless you've already made the glorious discovery.

Which alone can sustain you unless you forget to remember. He won't crush you. He doesn't jettison you. If you feel the moment of despair, if you feel that you've failed tragically, he's not going to throw you over the edge or put you in the trash can.

He didn't do that when he first sought you. Because he came to seek and save that which is lost. And it's a marvellous thing to be lost. You see if you're lost, you're wanted. You don't throw lost things in the trash can.

You look in the trash can for lost things. That's why the Lord Jesus was always getting into trouble for keeping bad company. He's going to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And that was the occasion, remember Luke 19, Zacchaeus, that fat little man hiding up a tree, not the first to try to hide from God behind a few leaves.

He said the son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. It's a marvellous thing to be lost. If only it will remind you that there's somebody who wants you. And if he sought you that far, having redeemed you, he's not likely to forsake you just because you get wounded and you begin to bleed.

He'll send an angel to feed you. And one of the most exciting things in my life has been seeing that happen in so many occasions. Under so many various circumstances because God is essentially original.

Gloriously unique. He never squeezes us into the same mould and makes us all as mouldy as each other. If you get shocked sometimes because God in another individual is being original, it's probably because you've never allowed God to be original in you.

You've allowed somebody to press gang you into some procedural conformity which will then be equated with your spirituality. And it means nothing. About nine, ten years ago, a pastor of a church in Florida got to this point.

He sat under his juniper tree. He was a converted man. He believed the Bible from cover to cover, had already invested many of his years in proclaiming Christ. But he was totally discouraged and became in his discouragement cynical.

God, if this is all there is to the Christian life, what I've known as I've sought to serve you, then I'm through. Furthermore, quitting, I'm never going to church again unless I discover there's something better than what I've had.

And you can be just in that frame of mind though you believe the Bible from cover to cover. Can look back to the moment and the place of your conversion and may have been heavily involved in all kinds of Christian activity and with no little sincerity.

And only three times in some five years did he ever cross the threshold of a church again in each instance on some social occasion. About four years ago, by a strange sequence of events, I was invited to conduct a week of meetings in an Episcopal church in Sarasota.

It was quite a unique week. But we had a whale of a time. Really fantastic. God had several friends in that community and I met him. For only one good reason, I was sent and went. And I wondered at first just where I've been put, mind you.

When I had to walk down, you know, the aisle behind a big brass cross and acolytes all dressed up like angels floating along on either side. All my Baptist friends who came to join the meeting were a little surprised.

Now I was brought up in the Anglican church and we have some very, very wonderful people in that church in England. It's the main line thrust evangelically in my country today. So I wasn't all that shocked.

They, you know, found it difficult to know when to get up and get down. And we were bobbing all over the place. But that was fun, you see. And we had some tremendous blessing. Now, just three weeks before I was due for that week of meetings in Sarasota, this pastor had quit some five years before.

Got out of his car to cross the sidewalk to go into a store. And as he did so, he saw on the wall a placard with my face on it. Well, that in itself was shocking. He recognized the name, but it didn't faze him because he was no longer interested.

But as he proceeded across the sidewalk, a gust of wind came precisely at that moment, whipped it off the wall and wrapped it around his chest. That's personal work. Well, it fell off his chest under the pavement and that face looked up at him.

And I suppose to get rid of the face, he picked it up and put it in the back of his car. And left it there and forgot it until three weeks later on the Sunday. He got out his golf clubs to play golf as he had done for five years every Sunday.

To put them in the back of the car, saw that face again and it reminded him of the meetings. And for some strange reason, took his golf clubs back, stuck them in the house and came to that first service.

I didn't know he was there. And he came every morning and every night, twice a day. The end on the Friday evening, among many, many others who said goodbye, he shook my hand. And very vaguely, I remember somebody saying, thank you.

I, too, was once a preacher. It was about 18 months later. I was in Sulphur, Louisiana. Conducting a week of meetings there in a church. And on the Tuesday, I got a call from a man in Abbeville on the Gulf Coast.

He said, you won't remember me or even my name, but you might just remember the circumstance in Sarasota. When on the Friday night, a man shook you by the hand and said, thanks. I, too, was once a preacher.

He said, I'd like you to know that Jesus Christ is back in business. Not I on his behalf, but he through me. And I'm pastor of the First Baptist Church in Abbeville. And I'm coming tonight with 14 of my men to attend the service this evening.

And he came. And Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, he commuted 200 miles each evening. And brought a whole bunch of his people, night after night. On the Wednesday night, I asked him to give his testimony.

He told us all then the things that I've just told you. And about 15 months ago, I was in his church. And we had a wonderful week. And at the end of that week, Friday night, when everybody had gone, I was just packing up my odd things.

And a boy came in, 15 years of age. He was obviously in deep distress. He said, I need Christ. And I had the joy of instructing him very simply as to God's plan. And we prayed together. And he received the Lord Jesus.

John’s Rescue and the Unfolding Story of Grace

November last, at our Torchbearer Conference, our Thanksgiving conference in Texas at His Hill. Together with the youth director and three others, they'd driven 14 hours through the night to attend for a couple of days.

And then drive 14 hours back. And just before they went, the others having taken their leave, the boy lingered a little bit behind. He said, I never had the courage to tell you this before. But on the Thursday night, before I came to you on the Friday to receive Christ in my bedroom, I put a gun to my head.

And only in the last second before I pressed the trigger, a little voice inside said, John, God's got something so much better for you than that. His father's a millionaire, owns a shipyard down in the Gulf.

But there wasn't anything worth living for. Now, he can't wait to get into Bible school and learn how he, too, can share Christ with others. And David and I were in his home. We were back for another week of meetings in that church just about three weeks ago.

And we shared John's home. This, to me, is the miraculous. You see, nothing spectacular, nothing sensational. Just a broken-hearted man, fit to quit, who gets out of his car and a gust of wind takes a placard off the wall and wraps it around his chest.

And then a year later, a boy with a gun to his head hears the voice of God and said, John, there's something better for you than that. And that's just the beginning of a new unfolding story. All you can do is stand back and watch and say, thank you.

And know that God just happens to be big enough for the job. God is kind, and he'll feed you when you're hungry. He'll lift you when you're down. And he arose, and he'd eat, and verse 8, he drank, and he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God.

And he came thither unto a cave, and he lodged there. Horeb. When you read the Old Testament, in particular, of course, the New Testament, too. But what brings the Old Testament alive is the sheer consistency of God the Holy Spirit in the revelation that he brings.

Remembering that these are they, the scriptures that testify of him. And magnificently illustrated in the Old Testament are all those spiritual principles that are so clearly enunciated for us in the New Testament.

Old Testament Allegory and the Gospel

The Lord Jesus, you may remember, taught in parables and allegories. Both the image of one thing in the picture of another. Except that a parable is normally a story that is thought up just to illustrate a principle.

The Lord Jesus spoke of the wedding feast. That was a parable where the first guests refused the invitation. So he sent out to the highways and the byways, the Gentiles. He invited you. He invited me to the wedding feast.

And the one, you remember, who's too proud to wear the wedding garment. And all went well because you can always find somebody who will get you in. The unfaithful servant. That's really the parable of the unfaithful servant.

The one who persuaded somebody too proud to wear the wedding garment that he'd get him in. Around the back. And he got him in. He got him in. And all was well. Swanking around, the only person in his own clothes.

The filthy garments of his own self-righteousness. All went well until what? The king came. And all eyes followed the gaze of the king. And in awful silence that you almost could have cut with a knife.

The king walked across and said, friend, how camest thou in hither without a wedding garment? And the man who had so much to say to the faithful servants. Was speechless. And the Lord Jesus said, the king commanded him to be cast out into outer darkness.

Well, that's a parable. Pretty powerful. Especially if you're sitting here without the wedding garment this morning. Which is Christ himself. His righteousness. With which alone, clothed, God can accept you in the beloved.

And I didn't think that up. Don't blame me. Christ thought that up. Because he is the way. Now that's a parable. But allegory is simply a historical record in the Old Testament. That magnificently illustrates spiritual truth, said the Lord Jesus.

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth on him should not perish. But have that life which alone is eternal. Christ. Everlasting life.

As Jonah was three days, three nights in the belly of the well, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights. That's why we knew he wasn't crucified on Friday. Must have been Thursday. The Son of Man shall be in the tomb.

These are allegories. And so, what makes the Old Testament come alive is to recognize the language of the Holy Spirit. And it doesn't happen overnight. Horeb. Does Horeb have a connotation for you? I like to call it, in England we'd say God's funk hole.