Based on 1 Kings 19:1-8. Jesus meets you in the darkest moments when you wonder if you are forgotten. Elijah ran in the darkness and discovered God was closer than He thought!

AMEN Conference 2025: Touched By Grace

<p>Based on 1 Kings 19:1-8. Jesus meets you in the darkest moments when you wonder if you are forgotten. Elijah ran in the darkness and discovered God was closer than He thought!</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>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Morning Devotionals

Don MacLafferty

Grace in the Darkness

Grace for the Wounded

Grace for Your Elisha


Good morning, everybody. How are you? If you're not seated beside someone, then look around and please team up with another person. And let's stand up together just for a moment. Quick activity to Get us ready for the Word of God look around you if someone's beside or by themselves Please invite them over to you look around you Okay In teams of twos, please ask each other the simple question Say in all your lifetime.

When have you experienced physical darkness in the deepest way like were you caving or spelunking if you're serious about it but you know what was your what was what was the place on the planet where you experienced like physical darkness you could almost feel it it was so so perfectly dark Just ask each other that question real quick. When you've answered that question, if you could thank your neighbor and have a seat right beside them. Do you have access to the best book in all the world? Do you have access on your phone? Please turn to your neighbor.

I'm going to give you a short passage to read. If you came here hoping for a passive experience, I'm sorry you're in the wrong room, but the word of God is to do something with right now just only listen to so I invite you to enjoy it I'm gonna give you just a couple of moments please read first Kings 7 pardon me 19 first Kings 19 and verses 1 through 8 first Kings 19 1 through 8 with your friend and It's not a it's not a a time to comment on it But just to read it let the Word of God just settle in our hearts this morning as you're reading it Here's the question to be pondering Be thinking how does this show me the grace of God in a very dark time in Elijah's life How do I see the grace of God? Let's go just for a moment When you finish reading it just take a moment and ask your neighbor, where do you see the grace of God in this part of Elijah's story? I'll give you just a moment to share that in twos. Alright, If there's anyone who's willing to answer that question, where do you see the grace of God in this part of Elijah's story?

Please just answer it in a line or 2. If you start preaching, I'll say, Amen! Just so that you know that's a friendly way to say, unstop. Okay? So who has something you're willing to share just in a line or 2?

Where do you see the grace of God? Yes, starting right here. That God didn't condemn him or the angel didn't condemn him at all for running away or for his fear. He just gave him food and sleep. Yes.

Amen someone else Something specific that touches your heart right over here. Thank you so much And thank you for those of both of both of you for having grace for me because I didn't warn you I needed roving Mike. So thank you Elijah was physically in a dark dark place and God came and touched him like showing he that he is not alone and God is next to him. Yes by the way how many of you noticed that there's physical touch there? Is that important when you're going through a discouraging time to have safe physical touch?

Yes. Someone else? What's another evidence of God's grace? Way back here and there's a hand here as well. God had such compassion on him because he had a work for Elijah to do but he saw that Elijah needed to reconnect with him and to heal and and to see him and so he he let him come for a time away to be restored.

Yes amen amen There's a hand over here and then we'll come up here. I think you had a hand also, right? Okay, so we can come right up here next. Okay, yes. So God's grace recognized for Elijah the fact that this was too much for him.

For the journey is too much for you. Yes. Amen. He knew he had limits. Right over here and then right over here.

The same thing, just the fact that God acknowledged that the journey was great for him. It's touching that a mighty God also knows what is too much for us to handle. Amen. Yes. I see God's grace towards Jezebel here.

It starts out with Ahab telling Jezebel what happened and this was an opportunity for Jezebel. We know what eventually happened to Jezebel, but right here Jezebel was experiencing grace. She had the chance to change her course. Wow. By the way, this is why the body of believers needs to do what we're doing right now.

I've never had that insight shared with me and I've been teaching and preaching this all over the planet. Thank you, Jesus, through you. Praise the Lord. Isn't that fun? Because Grace shows up where you're least expecting it.

Is there 1 more somebody out here over here okay poor Jezebel but that's right she had quite a space of grace I think several years there okay right over here okay I see the grace of God revealed through the broom tree that he hid under yeah just like the tree that was given during Jonah's time that is a shelter protection amen amen Did I see 1 more hand over here? I think right over here in the red. We'll stop with him. Okay well Elijah was in a episode of major depression And God is inspiring him to walk and to eat his food because depression could be also reversed as we have seen so by guess by God's grace we have seen by science also confirm that God is calling us to invite people by healthy food doing exercise to reverse the difficulties as leaders as well that they can face these kind of situations. Amen, thank you, thank you all.

Now by the way, I love it that it says 000 here. That means either I'm done already or I have all the time in the world. I'm not, I, it's up to open to interpretation, but, but I did notice that you prayed several times about just a few moments. So I'm going to, I'm going to disregard that, that graceful note right there. The doesn't have like 5 minutes, 4 minutes left, okay?

But no, don't worry. My friends, I read this story and I'm thankful it's there. I love reading in God's word about what Elijah did up on the mountain. Do you love that? When fire fell, I love that.

But I also love that in this story. There's such a dark time recorded and Elijah by the way, if you do the work on the map then if you like maps like biblical maps, it's very interesting he went hundreds of miles the wrong way at a critical time and if you look at at prophets and kings it was at a pivotal time like God had set the the whole table for a massive revival it was all set like all it needed is a match to just go. Well, the match had happened up on top of the mountain, but it was ready to spread. And in the most pivotal time, he ran the wrong way. Before we're too hard on him, sometimes I get discouraged.

How about you? Sometimes it's after seeing God do a mighty thing and I'm expecting everything to just go whoosh like a gasoline fire And sometimes it doesn't go whoosh. Sometimes it goes splat Can you imagine as as he's up against Jezreel and the rain is dripping off of his nose and he's cold and shivering and I'm imagining hungry not a good combination right cold wet hungry Wow and then he gets this messenger from the palace oh good maybe Jezebel is calling me to come and testify to her personally. You know, I don't know what was going on in his mind, but maybe. And the messenger comes up and it doesn't, it's not a summons to come to the palace and have a revival there.

It's I'm gonna do to you what you did to my prophets and so he runs and he runs and he doesn't just run a little bit he runs far far away and sometimes my brothers and sisters we have discouraging times too and we don't know what to do with it And the beautiful thing in this story is, is who runs with him? Who runs with him? God runs with him. How do we know this? Because as soon as he stops right there, an angel comes down while he's ready to take his own life which we also don't like to talk about in the Seventh-day Adventist Church sometimes godly people are even suicidal sometimes godly people are absolutely depressed and discouraged right it's good to talk about and to know if there's anybody here that's discouraged going through a rough time you're not alone Elijah had that time we have those times and right when he stopped God wasn't confused about where he was he wasn't uncaring he sent an angel right then Wow to show Elijah I'm still with you I am running with you Somebody here this morning needs to know that God is right there with you.

I'll share a story and then and then my friends Mark and Susan, they have a song. I don't know if they're singing together or just Mark. Okay, just Mark. So they have a ministry called His Call Ministry and you have to get to know them as well. My friends, I was in Africa, deep in Africa, and when this story happened, I went to this university, and then I went to a high school.

And in that setting, I met a man 1 morning, on a Sabbath morning, and I was so hungry, and I was looking for where the cafeteria was on a Sabbath morning I was supposed to speak in their church and I was looking around I was walking along I was way out by the way that's a huge campus at Seleucia That's where I was in Zimbabwe and I'm walking along and there's no signs anywhere And so I see a house and so I do a dangerous thing early Sabbath morning. I said good morning to you Well, there was nobody at first I said happy Sabbath to you And then a face appeared and a man came out and he said, happy Sabbath to you. And he said, how can I help you? I said, I'm looking for breakfast. And he looked a little worried.

I said, I'm not at your house. I mean, I'm looking for the cafeteria breakfast. I just don't know where I'm going and he said oh, I'm happy to take you there and I said great And as we're walking along he said now it's quite a ways and he said then he whispered like a conspiracy and he said But I need to tell you something. I can't see I Said oh thanks for sharing that with me. I said, I really need to get there and eat before I preach.

And he said, no problem, I know the way. So off we went, and it was quite a ways. And so we're going along, and he said, now, And he said, now, you're pretty tall, aren't you? I said, yeah, fairly tall. He said, I can tell.

I said, you can tell? OK. He said, by your pace. I said, by my pace? I mean, he had me all figured out.

He said, you're going to get to a very busy street coming up here, and you're going to be crossing the street in about 50 paces and sure enough 50 paces there we were and then we crossed the street and he said you are watching I'm looking I said don't worry and we crossed and he said and about 25 paces you're going to be crossing a very slippery, slippery trail that's muddy. And he said, and you're wearing Sabbath shoes, aren't you? I said, yes, I am. I said, I can tell by the way you're walking. And he said, you're going to have to be careful.

You're going to slip down there. He would did this all the way there. And then when I saw a low building over there, he said, now if you turn to the left a little bit, you're gonna see such-and-such a building. And he said, describe it to me. I described it to him and he said, that's it.

And he said, go ahead, go eat your breakfast and have a happy Sabbath. I said, where are you going? He said, I'm going back home. And he went all the way back, I mean up and down, everything all the way back home. Several days later passed, several days passed, and I went to his high school and it was the sun was just setting and I said, aren't you needing to get back home you want me to walk with you back home and he laughed and he said oh he said I'm not walking home I said oh you got your wife or somebody to pick you up he laughs he said oh no no no he said I'm running home I said you're running home I said now there's snakes that are still coming out at this time of night and there's other little animals and big animals and everything else and I said anything could be on the trail and he smiled at me very kindly and I said and what if somebody put a rock out there just to trip you up?

He said, I'm not worried. I said, you run like you like very gingerly, like carefully. He said, no, I run. Like he was, he was a young man. He said, I run as hard as I can.

And I said, to the darkness. He said, it's dark all the time. And he said, I just run. I said, how do you do that? He said I run with Jesus Somebody here needs to remember that you run with Jesus.

You don't run alone. Doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, whatever your title is, spouses, leaders in the church, whoever you are, you don't run alone in these last days. You run with Jesus. As Mark sings, simple invitation, if there are people in this room going through a discouraging time now, that is not embarrassing. It is the reality that sometimes we go through rough times and there's discouraging times.

I have an empty row here, an empty row here, an empty row there. If there's anybody in this room that's going through an Elijah moment where you just feel overwhelmed, is a dark time, I invite you to come up here while he is singing. And as people come and sit here, there may be only 1 person I'm supposed to do this for, I don't know, or maybe more, that I'm asking you, if you see a woman come up here and sit, I'm asking for a woman to come up here and be her sister and pray for her. If There's a man that comes and sits up here. I need a brother to come and pray for them.

We're not playing this weekend. This is about the grace of Jesus Christ. And it's about experiencing him in timely ways. Let's open our hearts up to this song. I'm gonna get on my knees and just be praying for whoever, whoever you are, that's in that time now.

Just come up to 1 of these chairs if that's you. Amen. I'm looking out before this pause here. Is there any of you, did you have anybody pray with you yet? Okay.

Anybody on this rose that hasn't had someone to pray with you raise your hand if you don't have didn't have somebody thank you everybody thank you everybody for coming up and and praying with people that that came up here let's pray just to close dear God in heaven you do care thank you doubly this morning thank you for those that came that are going through a dark time and just thank you that they're here at Amen and that you hand-picked them to be here for such a time as this. Can we say amen everybody? And thank you also for brothers and sisters that came up to pray with them because that's what we should do in these last days more than ever we should press together press together press together so God lift the burdens of those of us who who came and also those who didn't but wanted to come and made the Spirit of God tap in the truth that Jesus runs with us. In Jesus name, Amen. Through free sermon audio and much more.

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Morning Devotionals

Grace in the Darkness

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Other Teachings in Series

Grace in the Darkness

16m

Grace for the Wounded

15m

Grace for Your Elisha

21m

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