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[ Silence ] [Music] ♪ Fear not the temptation ♪ ♪ For healing is safe ♪

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♪ Each victory will help you ♪ ♪ Some other to win ♪ ♪ Fight not for the awful ♪ ♪ But passions of youth ♪

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♪ Look ever to Jesus ♪ He will carry you through. Ask the Savior to help you. Come to a triple and give you.

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He is willing to aid you. He will carry you through. Shout even companions, bad like with this day. ♪ God's name holding prayer breaths ♪

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♪ God take it in faith ♪ ♪ Be hopeful and earnest ♪ ♪ I want it in truth ♪ ♪ Look ever to Jesus ♪

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♪ He will carry you through ♪ ♪ His love will sing to help you ♪ ♪ God puts strength in every one of you ♪ ♪ He is willing to aid you ♪

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♪ He will carry you through ♪ ♪ No helper will come ♪ ♪ God gives us a crown ♪ ♪ No strength will conquer ♪

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♪ All of the cast down ♪ ♪ We will be with our Savior ♪ ♪ Our strength will renew ♪ ♪ Look ever to Jesus ♪

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♪ He will carry you through ♪ ♪ You trust Christ the Savior to help you ♪ ♪ Come for treatment and give you ♪ ♪ He is willing to give you ♪

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He will carry you through. [music] For our scripture, I invite your attention to 1 Kings, the 19th chapter. the first four verses,

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using the English Bible paraphrased. I Kings, the 19th chapter, verses 1 through 4. [pause] "When Ahab told Queen Jezebel what Elijah had done,

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and that he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal, she sent this message to Elijah. "You killed my prophets, and now I swear by the gods "that I am going to kill you by this time tomorrow night."

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So Elijah fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a city of Judah, and left his servant there. Then he went on alone into the wilderness,

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traveling all day, and sat down under a broom bush. and prayed that he might die. I've had enough, he told the Lord. Take away my life. I've got to die sometime and it might as well be now. The subject of the

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message when I've had all I can take when I've had all I can take there are times when I feel that I've had enough when I've had all I can take. It's a time when I am besieged by a sea of troubles.

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It's a time when I confront strong and stubborn forces of opposition. There are times for all of us when life seems to give us more than we can bear. Have you ever felt this way? In such a time as this, we are tempted to despair.

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We want to quit. We are prone to give up because our spirit is crushed, our faith is weak, and our hope is shattered. And I've had all I can take.

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That's a time when I do not want to be bothered. I don't want any more. It's a time when we've had enough. Life has a way of giving us more than we bargain for,

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a way of placing us in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Life has a way of aggravating and tormenting us. Human existence is a struggle. It's not a struggle sometimes,

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it's a struggle all of the time. But what we are concerned about in today's message has to do with those times when we are down in the dumps. For there are mountain peaks in our lives, but there are valleys between those mountains.

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Elijah is a courageous prophet. On Mount Carmel, as the lonely prophet of God, he challenges 450 prophets of Baal and comes forth victoriously. It is a great and decisive moment in Israel's history.

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faith triumphs. The false prophets are slain. The people humble themselves in the presence of the Almighty and cry out, "The Lord is God, the Lord is God." Vacillating King Ahab capitulates, but wicked Queen Jezebel threatens the life of the prophet. She vows to see to it that Elijah is killed within 24 hours.

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Not only does Jezebel have the courage to threaten God's prophet, she has the power to carry it out. All of the law enforcement agencies of the Kingdom of Israel are at her disposal. He says, "I'll see to it that you are killed by this time tomorrow night, Elijah.

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You can bet on it," she says. This threat, I don't know whether you've ever been threatened or not, but if you've ever been threatened. You don't take it lightly if your life has been threatened. Well this threat causes Elijah's blood pressure to mount. His adrenal glands

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engage in accelerated activity. He fears for his life. Elijah who stood boldly and challenged 450 prophets of Baal is now afraid of one woman. What does he do? Elijah does what most of us do in such a situation. He starts running. He runs He runs because he is afraid.

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We run away from the challenges of life when we are fearful. When we are afraid to take the risks, we run and hide. We run when we are afraid of the opposition. rather than confront that which we are up against?

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When we are afraid, we run rather than, as Reverend A.A. Lucas used to say, rather than face that which faces us. How often have people chosen to run

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rather than face the entrenched powers of evil in a nation. They would rather run away to another nation. How often have people chosen to run rather than face the entrenched powers of evil in a city?

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When things don't go well with them there, they choose to run to another city rather than to face it in that city. And how often is this true in a community rather than to grapple with the forces of evil in a community

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many have chosen to run And it is also true in Our personal experiences rather than to deal with the problems that Confront us

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We find ourselves trying to run away When faced with hostile situations or threatening circumstances, we are tempted to run. So Elijah runs. He runs from Mount Carmel to Mount Horeb. But before he gets to Mount Horeb, as he's in the course of his journey between these two mountain peaks, between the two mountain

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peaks there is a deep dark valley in his experience. He gets down in the dumps. First, He runs from Mount Carmel to Beersheba. That's from northern Israel down to the southern part of the country in Judah. He's run all across the whole nation, so to speak.

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And he's covered both Israel and Judah Because the Sheba is near the boundary line of Judah It's like passing through two large states

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He leaves his servant in Bashiba and Keeps on running. In other words, he says this servant. I want to leave you here because I want to run Where I'll be where so nobody will know where I am So he goes alone

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Leaving the servant there And he goes a day's journey Into the wilderness another 18 to 30 miles a day's journey Into the wilderness, what was he doing?

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Running Running. Running in the wilderness. Running in the wilderness. That says something to us. Because you see, the wilderness is a wild wasteland. hot, barren, deserted place, uninhabited, a lonely, unfruitful region. I've had a chance

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to see something of that wilderness down below Beersheba, and it's a terrible place to be left in alone. The hot sun burning down upon you, rocks look like just acres and acres of miles and miles of just rock, mountains of rock, not even a shade tree except now and then. And so here he is in this wilderness running, hot, tired,

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fearful, hungry, thirsty in the wilderness, utterly depressed, discouraged, broken, and crushed in spirit. In desperation, he seeks the shade of a desert shrub,

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a broom tree. And then when he gets there, he prays to die. He cries out to God, "It is enough. I've had all I can take. I don't want anymore God. In fact I can't go any further. I'm at a dead end on a one-way

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road. I've had it. I've run out of steam. My energies are exhausted. My resources are depleted. I've done everything I know to do and things just haven't worked out out for me. I've had all I can take. Just when I thought things were going to get better, they have become worse and they are worse than they have ever been. It is enough. Lord,

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it is enough. I've had all I can take. But you know Elijah seems to have forgotten what seems to have forgotten who God is. There are times when we try to tell God how to operate His program. We make out our agenda and we say to the Lord, "Now here, you follow this." He says,

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"It is enough, Lord. Take away my life." He's telling the Lord to arrange the agenda for his life the way he wants the Lord to arrange it and so he says to the Lord now look God my recommendation to you is that you just take my life right now let me check out I know you determined the time when I

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checked in but I want to tell you when I want to check out. I'm tired of this. I've had enough. And Elijah cries. How often has this experience been repeated time and time again? He cries and and finally falls asleep. How many pillows across this country and across the years

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have been made wet by those who've just cried themselves to sleep? Because they felt that life was more than they could take. And how many of us right here this morning have had those experiences deep down within

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when we've been down in the dumps, we've when we've cried out to the Lord saying Lord I've had more than I can take well he cries himself to sleep but who is it that determines the limits of our existence who is it who is it that that that that somehow created the

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heavens and the earth and somehow place man in the midst of it all and said be fruitful and multiply. Who is it that somehow determines our beginning and our end? Who is it? It is God who is the creator and we the creature. Our limits saw in the hands of God. And so we are the subjects of the one who has made us

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and he knows all about us. The choir sang so fervently he knows just how much I can bear. He knows. And the truth of the matter is that we don't know how much is enough that's really the truth we don't know how much is enough we really don't so Reverend you really mean that yes you know so many people put on their

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plates what they say they need and they don't eat it they can't eat it and they leave it there and the problem most of the time is we don't know how much is enough. And many of us today in the country are carrying a whole lot of weight around that we ought not to be carrying around on our bodies and in our

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minds because we don't know how much is enough. And we have to have someone to tell us. Just like my parents when I was much younger they would help my plate because I didn't know how much was enough they said we know how much to put on the plate well God knows how much to put on our plate he knows what we ought

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to have he already knows what we ought not to have and he knows how to equip us in order to deal with that which comes our way and so he cries himself to sleep and in the midst of this experience he he feels that he's had enough but in the midst of this experience there comes a new supply of energy. Here's a man that's

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run out, here's a man who's tired, here's a man who's come to the point in life where he wants to give up. Human energies may be exhausted but a new supply of energy is available because while Elijah sleeps an angel comes. That's the way it is. You don't have to really solve the problem yourself many times when you

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just leave it alone and while you sleep. He cried himself to sleep talking to God and and telling God about his problem and while he slept there came an angel and touched him. Said, "Wake up, Elijah. Wake up." And the angel had there before him a coal, live coals, where bread had

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already been baked. And there was a pitcher of water already Here he was in a dry and thirsty land. Here he was where there was a place there was no bread, no bakery, no water, no well.

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But while he sleeps, the angel of the Lord comes and awakens him and says, "Wake up, wake up, Elijah. "You've run out of energy, but here is a new supply. Wake up and eat and drink and refresh yourself.

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When you get these difficult problems and you've taken all you can take and you wanna check out and you wanna tell God that you can't really go any farther,

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an angel comes and refreshes you. You know, I know what that's all about. That's really meaningful to me, what happened to Elijah. Because so often I have been engaged in projects and involved here and there,

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and I've come to the point where I say, "Oh, I want to give it all up." But when I come back, God has somehow refreshed my energy, and He has provided a table for me in the midst of it all, and has refreshed me and renewed my strength,

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enabled me to go on. when I've had all I could take. An angel of the Lord ministers to my needs and gives me strength to carry on. And you know how long he carried on in that strength? For 40 days and 40 nights. It's remarkable what God will do. In fact

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that's the way God did Moses when Moses was up there and we find him as he goes in that strength 40 days and 40 nights he goes to Mount Horo that's God's mountain he has left Mount Mount Mount Carmel and here we have him at Mount Horo God's mountain he's gone in that strength for 40 days Moses was at that

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mountain and Moses went up there and Moses had Joshua there and they stayed there 40 days and he fasted 40 days he had strength to go for 40 days and here we find Elijah having the strength to go in other words the strength to go for the journey that was set before him because here's what the angel said to him

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said Elijah said a journey is too much for you you see the problem is too much for you. In other words, my human patience, my human strength and your human patience and your human strength is just too much for you. You know when we're trusting in ourselves, you know what we do when we've had all we can take and

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we trust in ourselves? Some people, you know, they start a cursing spree when they've had all they can take. That's when they set in on cursing. Somebody else well I'm gonna quit I'm gonna leave it all alone I've had all I can take but God said here here is what you need the journey is too much for you you can go in the strength of this and they

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went for Elijah rather went for 40 days and here we find him in at Mount Horeb and he goes into his cage, we call it, I call it a cage, it was really a cave, he goes into a cave in this mountain and so many people go in that little cave when we have problems. We run away, try to hide in a cave and here he is in this little cave hiding from reality,

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hiding in a cave. But the Lord never leaves us. No matter how much we try to hide from our responsibility, whether it's in the church, whether it's on the job, whether it's in the community or whether it's trying to hide from ourselves, God finds us right where we are. he comes there, "Elijah, Elijah, Elijah." Knows every one of us by name. Say, "What

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are you doing here? What are you doing here? Oh Lord." Say, "You really don't know what happened. What they've done to me, why I'm all you've got." They've slain all of the prophets and only I am left to witness for you. You know and this is what you call self-pity. A lot of times we just we just sit around

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sometimes if we aren't careful licking our wounds and feeling sorry for ourselves because the burden is heavy and feeling sorry for ourselves is not what God really wants us to do. He wants us to be equipped to accept that burden because he knows how much we can bear and he wants us to let that burden show

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to others how great his strength is. And so he says to Elijah, he said now Elijah I have seven thousand who have not even bowed their knees to bail you're not alone You're not alone And in other words

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Yeah, what I want you to do Elijah is to go back go back from where you've come Go back where you've come from. Oh, it had a lot of wasted energy. He had he had traveled some 80 miles from one part of the country to the next least some 80 miles and and God said now you go right back you go right back up there where you were I

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know Jezebel is there I know I know I know the threats on your life and go back and I want you to go back robbed in my power and in my strength go back you accept the burden go back. You know what Elijah prayed to die but God didn't let him die. You see in the scripture he didn't die he was just translated so

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that he didn't see death. In other words if you work for God there's no end to our living. God is with us and it goes on and on. Life goes on no matter what can can come our way, life goes on. So thanks be to God. I thank God that he comes in

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when I've had more than I can take. (audience laughing) I thank God that he's right there when I come to the end of the rope.

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God is right there to give me a hand. He's always right there. Thanks be to God. Well, that happened back there in Horeb in a cave

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when he had that theophany, Elijah came out and went on. [ Silence ]