Are you afraid of committing or recommitting your life to Christ because you are afraid of failing Him? Are you a Christian who is filled with shame because you have failed God? This message is for you.

<p>Are you afraid of committing or recommitting your life to Christ because you are afraid of failing Him? Are you a Christian who is filled with shame because you have failed God? This message is for you.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Heritage Academy

Dee Casper

What if I Fail?

Father, I do thank you for this privilege to have been afforded this time with the students.

And I'm just praying as we have our last message together, that the spirit of Jesus would be present and active, even more now than ever.

I'm praying as Ellen White prayed over the meetings in South Lancaster, Massachusetts.

Lord, I want to see the glory of God waft over this congregation.

I want to see you do for these people what I cannot.

And I know that it's what you want, and so you have permission to do just that.

So, because we've had 9 messages, and you've had 2 in a short span and you're in a building that reminds you of a church service and in church services it's difficult to keep attention and to keep going, the battle's real.

I'm not going to make you think near as hard as I did for Sabbath school, that was intentional.

This is more going to be in a story format, overviewing the life of a man named Elijah.

But the message is entitled, What If I Fail?

I mentioned to you last evening that I was giving a Bible study to a young man who means the world to me, and we got to the point of decision, and he recognized that God loved and valued him individually, that he was everything that God was looking for and that God was everything that he was looking for, but his concern was that I don't want to let him down.

But I've made this decision before, and I wasn't who I thought I would be when I made that decision, and I don't want to hurt him again.

And there's sincerity in what's being said, but the question is, what if I fail?

What if I find myself responding to this morning's appeals, and I say yes to Jesus, and I begin on this journey, but then a misstep happens on the way.

There's great solace that we can take from the life of a man named Elijah And I'd like to share his story with you this morning and conclude with a hint of Moses' story and then something absolutely amazing in spite of the brokenness of human instrumentalities.

I'm going to skip this slide and go here.

If you read in the book Prophets and Kings, if you haven't read this, I recommend it with everything that I can find within me, with all the courage, with all the inspiration and recommendation that I can muster.

I'm going to need this closer because this has actually got information for me that I will need.

So in Prophets and Kings, it starts in Chapter 10.

The whole book's good, don't get me wrong, but regarding Elijah's story, it gets good in 10 and it gets gooder from then on.

11, 12, and 13, and I can say that because I have no plaques of degrees on my wall, so I have nothing to be ashamed of.

So Elijah is given a call from God, and this begins in chapter 10 of Prophets and Kings.

It's amazing, it's better than any Hollywood script that you'll ever see, I promise you, way better.

And it's true, this is actually what happened.

This isn't fairy tales and felt stories, This is the real deal.

And so Elijah's given a call, and his call is to proclaim to the king of Israel, who's a very nasty man.

He's actually the worst king that Israel has ever had and will ever have.

And he strolls up to this man Ahab and she says, like a thunderbolt on a clear sky, this man walks up and he tells the king there's not going to be a drop of rain in this land for 3 and a half years.

And like a thunderbolt on a cleared sky, it's like he just gets punched in the mouth and when he turns around to see who hit him, Elijah's gone.

Comes, drops the message, but it gets even more interesting because we're told in this chapter that everything that Elijah's eyes beheld, nothing told him that what he was saying would actually come true.

The hills are flowing with verger and everlasting hills with water and streams.

Nothing about this land looks like plague, or not plague, but that drought could touch it ever.

It's never gonna happen, you would think.

And yet he chooses to believe what God says in spite of what he sees, drops the bomb and leaves, and there's a woman named Jezebel who is absolutely livid once this drought falls upon Israel and Ahab and Jezebel are looking for this man high and low.

They check every rock in Israel, everywhere.

God calls him to the brook Cherith and he sends ravens to feed Elijah as he's there.

In my mind's eye, I would love to think that that bread that he's fed comes from Ahab's table.

I really don't know, but that would be amazing.

Regardless, God sends birds, the ravens, to feed Elijah to care for his needs of the broke sheriff.

Time goes on and eventually he goes to the widow of Sarepta and he asked her could you give me a morsel of food and she says I don't think you understand man all I'm doing right now is gathering sticks to make 1 last meal for my son and I before we die, because this is the last flour, this is the last oil I have, and we have nothing more from here.

And he says, make a cake for me first, and God will provide for you.

She takes this act of faith, and she is provided for with abundance, well, with her every need of her sustenance, we'll phrase it that way, throughout the whole length of this drought.

The 3 and a half years conclude and Elijah is given another message.

He's to return to Ahab, the same Ahab who is seeking to kill every prophet in Israel that he can find because they're all bringing bad news to us.

If 1 brings bad news, they must all be bad news.

And Elijah runs into 1 of the workers of the king.

And this man sees Elijah and Elijah says, I want you to tell Ahab that I'm here.

And his response is, do you have any care for me at all?

This man has been looking high and low for you, man.

And if I end up going to tell him and I come back and the Spirit of the Lord brings you elsewhere, he's going to kill me.

Haven't you heard what I did for the prophets of the Lord?

I put 50 in a cave here and fed them, and I put 50 in another cave over here and fed them.

I'm trying to be a righteous man, and you're giving me a death sentence." And Elijah tells him, you have nothing to be afraid of, I will stay here, go and tell him.

Ahab comes, he talks to Elijah and he says, is that you, oh troubler of Israel?

Elijah's the problem for Israel, not its unrighteous king that's laughing in the face of God and worshiping Baal.

It's Elijah that's the problem, apparently.

Elijah tells him, I want you to bring everyone that you can find.

And the king does not shirk or even bat an eye at what's going on here.

He immediately does what Elijah tells him to do.

And yet the king does whatever Elijah tells him because he says this man is serious.

I mean, this dude prayed and it didn't rain for 3 and a half years.

Even though I'm upset, I'm just going to do what he says.

So he goes, he brings all the prophets of Baal, he brings the whole nation of Israel, and he says, meet me on Mount Carmel.

Now in the world, if you went to public school like me, you met people at the flagpole.

At my junior high, it was at the fabric store across the street, the women's clothing store across the street, and they went out back and took care of business, right?

Thankfully, I was never in that position.

Bring your boys and meet me at Mount Carmel.

This begins to get into, I think, chapter 11.

And as they get to chapter 11, as the story goes, this is in 1 Kings, by the way, like 17, 16-ish, somewhere right in there.

But I'm just kind of overviewing just for time's sake, and I think a story will be easier for you to pay attention to than just turning pages all over the place.

So Elijah gets to the top of the mountain, and he says, how long do you tarry between 2 opinions?

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What if I Fail?

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