Sermon Central
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Repair The Broken Down Altar
Contributed by Gregory Mc Donald on Oct 14, 2002 (message contributor)
Summary: The story of Elijah and how God used him to turn His people back to Him. Also three steps to repairing the altar in your life and turn back to God.
Repair The Broken Down Alter
Pastor Greg Mc Donald
This morning if you look in your bulletin you will see that one of our prayer request is our nation. Today we live in a world felled with nothing but sin, rott, and filth. We live in a nation that excepts abortion, homosexuality, drugs and alcohol as just a way of life.
Here are some of the excuses for these, Abortion, well it’s my body and I’ll do what I want with it, Homosexuality, it’s just a way of life, if that’s what you want to do and if that’s what you like, than that’s your business, Drugs, once again it’s my life I’ll do what I want, besides show me were it’s wrong, Then there’s that one so many think it’s O.K. to drink, or I’m just a social drinker.
Where do all the people get these ideas? When did all these things start to become a way of life? If you don’t know, I’m going to tell you. It’s when we started taking God out of everything. He’s been taken out of the school’s, people are trying to take Him out of Christmas and Easter, and there are Churches that are even trying to avoid the issue of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Today people have a way of taking God’s word and sugar coating it so it will fit the needs of their wants in their life and they only believe what they want to believe another words they end up taking God’s word totally out of context so it will fit their way of life. We need to quite using bits and pieces of God’s word and putting them together to suite our dirty deeds.
Let me share with you what God’s word has to say about some of these in (Isaiah 5:20-25).
v.20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
v.21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and bright in their own sight!
v.22 Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mix
strong drink;
v.23 who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of
the righteous from Him!
v.24 Therefore as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame burns up the chaff, so their root shall be like rottenness, and their blossom shall go up like dust -- because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts; and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel
v.25 Therefore the anger of the Lord is kindled against His people, and He has stretched out his hand against them, and has stricken them; and the hills trembled, and their died bodies were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is still stretched out still.
It only took one person to change peoples minds about Bible’s in the schools,(Madeline O’Hara). If you think one person can’t make a difference, look at what she did. All it took was one person to fight for what they believed in to make a change. That is the same way it work’s in the life of a obedient child of God. One person being obedient to God and being a faithful servant can make a difference.
This morning I would like to take a look at Elijah. Elijah is a colorful character in the Old testament. Not much history is given about him, it just says in ( 1 kings 17:1) Elijah the Tishbite. Now he was around for quite a while, but we probably know most about his ministry during the reign of King Ahab in Israel.
Ahab was a king who knew about God, but became very lax in his faithfulness to God. We also know a lot about his wife...a woman from the city of Tyre named Jezebel.
Jezebel was a person who was very religious...she was very devout in her war- ship...the problem was that the "god" she worshiped was Baal. Now, you may remember that Baal was the Canaanite god of the storm and fertility.
And Jezebel made no apologies for her worship practices. Right in Israel she openly worshiped this false god...she erected a temple in his honor...she even supported a college to train his prophets.
Now, it would have been bad enough for his wife to be doing these things in Israel...but Ahab joined right in and worshiped Baal to. In fact, in Chapter 16 it says that Ahab did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any king before him.
