Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We're in the middle of some messages on prayer from the life of Elijah. He was the one, if you remember, that was used by the Lord's brother James as a model—a model of somebody that really knew how to pray. He knew how to pray so the rain stopped, or the rain came, and fire fell from heaven and all sorts of exciting things. But he knew what it was to pray with power.

Prayer that works has to work. We have to work at prayer. Again, I want to come back to that—there is no shortcut to any of the disciplines in the Christian life. There's no shortcut to learning the Bible. There's no shortcut to learning how to witness and lead people to Christ. There's no shortcut in learning to serve Him or find your gift and exercise it in the body of believers. We have to spiritually work at the discipline that God is teaching us about.

Prayer has been a grand adventure for me for the last three years, and I'm just thoroughly enjoying this material. We have to get back to basics. We have to know what it is to be effective ourselves in our devotional disciplines, and especially in the matter of prayer.

Elijah was the "rain man." He was the one that God used to bring blessing back on a parched earth and to remind Ahab, who was king of the Jews at that point, that He is the ultimate rain man. His servants have power with Him. If people go away from Him, then God will withhold the things that make life possible on earth as a reminder of who He is and what this life is all about. God is God, and we are His creatures. We had better realize that.

We're going to look at what I think is one of the most exciting stories of Elijah, and perhaps the one that we know best. Of course, it's all about fire on the mountain. I want to talk about fire on the mountain because I've observed something about the Christian life. You can get everything in place; your doctrine can be absolutely correct, like the altar that Elijah built on the top of the mountain. You can have it all right—all your t's crossed and your i's dotted.

You can be serving the Lord with all your heart and soul like he was, and you can be standing up to be counted and doing all the right things. You can even be praying, studying the Word, and being part of the purposes of God, exercising your gift. But if there's no fire, what's the point? If there's no power and no effect in what we're doing, what's the point?

If we stand up here and preach our hearts out to a couples' retreat and no marriage is amended, no repentance happens, and no families are strengthened, then what's the point of saying all those words? Maybe we've got it all correct in the evangelical church, but there's no fire. Fire here is a symbol of the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything has to be in place before the fire can fall. It's a commentary on what's happening in this country—many of us have it all absolutely right, and yet there is no power whatsoever in our Christianity.

Let's look at 1 Kings chapter 18. For a little bit of background, Elijah has been hidden by God in Zarephath. God put him in a family and said, "Now I'm going to hide you here right under Jezebel's old haunts. This is the town she came from; she'll never think of looking for you here. When the time is for us to get Israel back on track, then I'll tell you." God told Elijah it was time to have this confrontation. So, he heads back into territory where he has been diligently searched for by Ahab's army for three years.

He meets Obadiah. Obadiah is like a Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar or a Joseph in the court of Pharaoh. Obadiah is Ahab's steward. He's the guy running the show, keeping the books, and doing the accounting. He's the one that knows everything that's happening in the palace. He's also been trained in one of the schools of the prophets that had actually been started by Elijah and then shut down because Jezebel started this persecution, hunting out the prophets of the Lord and destroying them.

Obadiah, being in a position to hear all of this, figures out that he knows where some of the prophets are. He can run a covert operation, which he begins to do. He starts to spirit away the prophets of the Lord and hide them in caves. You can't just take 100 prophets and put them in a cave; you've got to feed them. Where are you going to get the food? You've got to buy it. How are you going to keep people's mouths shut? You're going to have to bribe them. It was a very dangerous operation he was doing.

Ahab says to Obadiah one day, "We have to go out and hunt on our horses for new water. Everything's dried up; our cattle are dying. Let's go see how many cattle we've lost and if we can find any source of water." So, Ahab and Obadiah get on their horses and go out to look in the desert places for water. Suddenly, Ahab says, "I'll go this way, you go that way." They split up to look for water, and around the corner of a cactus, here is Elijah.

He meets Obadiah nose to nose, and Obadiah says, "Is that you, my lord Elijah?" It's his old professor from seminary standing there behind a cactus. It's quite a shock. Elijah says, "Yes, it is. Go and tell Ahab I want to see him." At this, Obadiah just about has a fit. He says, "I'm not going to tell him you're here! The whirlwind will come and spirit you away, and I'll bring him here, and he'll have my head for teasing him that I've found you at last." Elijah says, "No, I will meet him today. Go get him."

Ahab comes, and somehow Elijah gets him to agree to rounding up the entire nation of Israel and bringing them to Mount Carmel. How he did it, we're not told. I am absolutely convinced he did not tell him what he was going to do, or he wouldn't have done it. I think probably Elijah got Ahab there because he said, "It's time for the rain. I've come to reverse the curse on the weather." Ahab would have been up for that.

So, he gathers the whole of the nation of Israel to Mount Carmel. Ahab meets Elijah, and when he sees Elijah, he says, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" "I haven't made trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "You and your father's family have. You've abandoned the Lord's commands and have followed the Baals. Now, summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. Bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."

Ahab sent word throughout Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal is God, follow him." But the people said nothing. Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left, but Baal has 450 prophets." Then he proposes the contest with the two bulls and the two altars. The god who answers by fire is God. Israel thinks this is an obvious way to settle the matter.

They agree to it, which leaves the prophets of Baal probably a little uneasy, but with absolutely no option but to do what Elijah is telling them to do. So, they build their altars. Elijah is very carefully getting the moss off the stones that have been the altar of the Lord. Jezebel had been rampaging through the land for three years, finding the altars that had been built to the Lord and destroying them and scattering them in the countryside. He carefully finds the 12 original stones of this altar on Mount Carmel that has been destroyed.

He builds it, and then he begins to taunt them. At noon, Elijah began to taunt them because they've been praying all morning and nothing's happened. "Shout louder! Surely he is a god! Perhaps he's in deep thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he's sleeping and must be awakened. Take him a cup of tea; let's get him up." So, they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.

Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, and no one paid attention. There are millions of people in this world that are praying sincerely, and there's nothing wrong with their faith or their fervency. There's just something wrong with the object of their faith. They are praying to a god, and there is no response, no one answers, and no one pays attention.

Then Elijah said, "Come to me." They came, and he repaired the altar of the Lord which was in ruins. He took 12 stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel." When he had built the stones, he dug the trench around it, put the bull on the top, and made them haul water up from the bottom of the mountain and soak the whole thing three times. They must have been absolutely exhausted.

Then, at the time of the sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and said, "O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and have done all these things at Your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You're turning their hearts back again." Then the fire of the Lord fell, burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the soil, and licked up the water in the trench.

When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!" Then Elijah commanded the people to seize the prophets of Baal and slaughter them. Quite a story. Then the fire fell.

We've got to take on the prophets of Baal. There are many voices shouting for the minds of men. I have sat in a meeting all day listening to reports from around the world in places where Christianity is minimal or absent altogether. I have heard over and over again of the voices deceiving and confusing the minds of men about who is God. We've got to take them on. You and I are invited by the Lord to be part of the plan and purpose of God in this respect. "I know the plans I have for you," says God to Israel, and we can apply that to ourselves—plans for good and not for ill, to give you a future and a hope.

The problem is, the devil has plans as well, and he knows the plans he has for us and for everybody in the world—plans of evil and not for good, to give us a hopeless end. And the voices are loud—Baal and God. We've got to take them on.

I remember when Stuart and I were involved in youth work, going to an incredible place full of kids that were the wildest-looking creatures you can possibly imagine. We were supposed to go and do something with this bunch. The young pastor had managed to go out on the streets with his youth group and invite them in, literally off the streets. The place was packed from one end to the other, and there was loud music playing. Stuart cracks open the door and this incredible sight meets your eyes.

I just froze on the doorstep. We react very differently to things. For Stuart, it's like a red rag to a bull—"Come on, this is great! Let's go!" And I'm standing there absolutely shaking. He looks at me and says, "What's wrong with you? We're right, they're wrong. Come on!" I always remember that. "We're right, they're wrong. Come on. Let's take them on." That night, the worst boy in the youth group was converted. Stuart's told that story in church quite a few times. He now heads up a school's work that reaches 100,000 kids in the British school system.

I remember just looking through that door on the defensive. We are very much on the defensive. I would like to see us begin strategies that take us out of the pew and out there where the people are—again, into the shopping malls, down onto the beach, into the parks where the people are and where it's at. We're fishing in a swimming pool. What we've got to do is get in the muddy streams where the real fish are—the big ones and the dangerous ones—and take the gospel to them.

The test here is very simple: who answers prayer? I have found as I have shared answers to prayer around the world to non-believers, this can be the biggest magnet for evangelism. Sitting on a plane, sitting in the airport, standing in the supermarket, talking to your neighbor in the summer—try sharing some dramatic answers to prayer, either your own or other people's. Books in the bookstore are full of people that called God to answer specific prayer and the fact that He did. Because that's the thing that's going to impress them.

It really is amazing. I'm going to tell you one of our stories today that really is quite incredible. I have used this story worldwide, especially when I'm getting nowhere any other way. Maybe I've argued the gospel for an hour sitting on a plane with somebody, and I'm just absolutely getting nowhere. I thought, "Well, let's try another tack." And so I'll say, "Do you ever pray?" Well, yes, everybody prays. "Does God ever answer your prayers?" "I don't know, nobody's ever asked me that."

So I'll say, "Well, think about it. Have you any prayers that have been answered? I'd love to hear about them; I always enjoy hearing about how God answers people's prayers." Well, there's a sort of blank look, and nothing happens. So I say, "Should I tell you how my God answers my prayers?" Well, what can they say? "Oh well, all right." And so I say, "Oh, good!" Then I share an answer to prayer. I often tell the story of Prince.

Prince was our golden retriever that we brought to America hundreds of years ago when we immigrated. Prince was our children's pet, and when Elmbrook asked us to come, they said, "We would like you to sell up everything because it's easier for us to just transport you, and we will give you a beautiful house and everything in it. So, sell up everything—everything in your house, your house—and just come with your clothes and another suitcase full of really precious things each." So we came to America with two suitcases apiece. One of them had our clothes, and the other one had everything we could cram into it that was very special and precious. That's how we came—and, of course, the dog.

Stuart was in America actually when I got that telegram: "Sell up, just sell up, give it away, just do it all, and I'll be back in three months and we'll go to America." So I obediently and submissively began to sell up everything. I gave half of it away, then I sold half of it, and I still had a room full of junk that nobody wanted. You try doing it sometime—there are some things you can't give away and some things you can't sell. However, I eventually managed to, and Stuart came back, of course, when it was all done. He looked around very satisfied and said, "That's great." I said, "Now what are you going to do to contribute to this immigration?" And he said, "I'm going to get Prince's box."

So he did. We arrived at Manchester Airport to say goodbye to our family and our country and come here in 1970. We got there, and Stuart said, "Where's the dog's box?" It was nice for him to have me and the three kids along, but it was very minimal compared to how important it was to have Prince. I want you to know that. So, he became very interested in where the box was. The box came; it was too small. "That's too small for my dog," he said. Well, we'd doped him, so by now he was sitting here... "You can't just curl him up and push him in," Stuart said. "I'm not doing that to my dog."

By now Stuart had made me and the kids get on the plane. Here we were immigrating, and Daddy wasn't in sight, but we could see—everybody could see him on the tarmac arguing about the dog and Prince getting worse and worse here. Everyone was looking at their watches because we had to go from there to London to get our transatlantic flight. People were missing their flights all over the world. Upon which, my daughter says in a loud voice, "It's all because of our dog!" which didn't make us very popular.

Eventually, Stuart gets on the plane. He looks very satisfied with himself—no Prince. I said, "What's happened?" "Shh." Okay. So we go to London. The kids asked where the dog was, and Stuart didn't answer them. We come off the plane—it's one of these planes where there's a ramp down with steps here and one down with steps here. We look over here, and here is Stuart coming out of the cockpit with our dog. True story.

The captain had looked down and said, "Wonderful dog! I've got two donkeys and a cat and four of those. Bring him up here, bring him up. Don't tell anyone, I'll lose my job. Don't tell anyone! But he's doped, he can lie on the floor." So Prince lay on the floor. However, as we came in to land, so the captain told us, he sensed something was happening and dragged himself from his semi-oblivion and jumped up on the thing. The little man was doing this... and there was a golden retriever looking down at him.

As Stuart slid with the dog down the steps—or the dog slid and Stuart was holding onto him—the lady behind me said, "Look at that poor man, he's blind!" Whereupon my husband tried to look blind and didn't succeed very well. But the lady in front of us said, "That's the way to deal with them hijackers!" which was even more ridiculous. However, that's how we immigrated, and it was an incredible story.

We get here, and Prince doesn't understand that he has to be on a lead. He's been running around the English countryside chasing sheep and cows and cattle. Now, suddenly he's in this strange place. So, I let him out at night. He's a retriever, so he retrieves every doormat in the neighborhood and brings them to my door. I have to go out after dark and try and match them to all the houses in the neighborhood. He was a real help in settling us in—he was the only familiar thing we had, and especially for the children.

About three weeks after we got here, we had our first blizzard. I inadvisably let the dog out the door, and he was gone. I remember standing in our first home, the beautiful home that you had so generously provided for us with everything we needed, holding hands with our three children and praying for Prince. I remember the kids' faith prayers—they never had a doubt that God would keep their doggy safe and that his little paws wouldn't freeze. I thought, "Oh Lord, how do I prepare them to know that Prince might not come back?"

Four days later, he had still not returned. Fifth day, we get a call. "We've got your dog," says the dog pound. I said, "How do you know he's ours?" We'd only been there three weeks, and of course his collar hadn't had a chance to do all that—so it had on it "Capenray Hall," which is where we lived and worked. But it was an old collar, and half the name had rubbed off. The man said, "Well, we looked on his collar and we saw 'ray Hall.' So, we looked in the phone book and we looked up Mr. Ray Hall and we called him and we said, 'Have you lost a dog?' and he said, 'No I haven't, but my next-door neighbor has.'" True story!

God knew, I think, how important that doggy was to three little British immigrants who'd come here with two suitcases and their dog. In His grace, He brought him back and He left him with us for 16 awful years. He ran away regularly; he was the bane of my life.

I have told that story to all sorts of people, and it's a winner. It's a wonderful story. You tell me that happened by coincidence? No. You add another and another and another, and you see that the Lord, He is God. This is a contest: who's the God that answers prayer? The thing we've got going for us here is that the devil can't do it. That's the one thing he can't do—he can't answer prayer. Well, he'd be a fool to, wouldn't he?

"Lord, I need a changed life"—is he going to answer that? "Lord, I need peace of mind"—is he going to answer that? "Lord, I need things that are going to build up my children"—is he going to answer that? No, he's not going to answer that. He is totally hamstrung. He cannot answer. There was none to answer, nobody that regarded, nobody that took any notice. He can't do it. So, it's a powerful tool—answered prayer.

I remember Stuart was living in Montgomery House, which was a hostel when we first met. He was working as a bank inspector in Manchester, and I was in Liverpool, the next city. He had a lot of time at night and he would go to the common room and talk to the students—it was a student hostel. One of the young men he started to work with was called John, and he used to argue the gospel night after night. John said to him, "I can't believe anything in here; it just doesn't make any sense at all."

Stuart gave him a great big pair of scissors and a Bible and said, "Take this away and cut out of this Bible literally everything that you cannot accept—everything that's supernatural, everything that you just cannot accept, that you can't understand." John went away and for a couple of weeks he worked his way from Genesis to Revelation with a pair of scissors. He brought Stuart what was left, which was very little. Stuart said, "Now then, you have a god that you can understand. I'm not interested in a god like that because he's a god the size of John's mind. I don't have a god like that."

John said, "You know how hard this was for me—to take a pair of scissors and cut these pages?" Stuart said, "Why would it be hard? You've been doing it with your tongue." He worked with that young man for a year and a half, and nothing gave until he started to diligently, fervently pray for him. He'd been praying for him all along, but not "praying—let the fire fall here." As he gathered all of us—I was praying in Liverpool and other people began to concentrate on this one young man—I think within two weeks he came to Christ.

You can have it all right. You can have all the arguments, be really clever and intellectually superior to the people that you're working with, but what's that good if the fire doesn't fall? So, here we are on the top of Mount Carmel, and it's going to happen in a minute—we hope. Of course, it does. It really seems a very unfair competition because you've got 450 prophets of Baal. Notice the prophets of Asherah didn't come. There should have been 850 prophets there; there were only 450.

But the prophets of Baal were there, and one prophet of the Lord. You say, "Well, that's not fair." One's a majority with God. They were on a short haul to nothing here. They didn't have anyone that listened, anyone that regarded, anyone that could send down fire from heaven. God's the rain man and God's the fire man, and He's in charge of the elements—He can send the lightning. He can send fire that's going to demolish stones, melt the stones, and lick up water.

God does His part when we've done ours. Let's look at a few of the conditions of this happening. He had to repair the altar. If we are going to see the fire fall in answer to our prayers and we're going to see people's lives changed and see effective ministry through our lives, we have to repair the altar that is in ruins.

On that little piece of paper that you have, if you happen to have a pencil, you might want to just draw a little altar using the whole side of the paper. You can put four stones on the bottom, three stones on the next bit, two on the next, and then three on the top. That makes a nice little altar. He had to repair the altar of the Lord. The broken altar represents the relationship of Israel to Jehovah, and it's broken—it's in ruins. It's the symbol of Jehovah and Israel working together to bring redemption to this world. It's all gone wrong, and the people have been playing the fool, worshipping Baal. It's just been a disaster.

I can see Elijah, in the time it took Ahab to gather Israel and get them to the mountain—probably four or five days from meeting him in the desert—I wonder what Elijah did. I know one thing he did—he prayed, probably fasted. I know another thing he did—he looked for those 12 stones in that place where there had been an altar of the Lord and Jezebel had demolished it. I can see him carefully finding the original 12 stones, covered with moss, buried under rubble, and carefully cleaning them. He had them there ready so when he had Israel, he could show them: "I am rebuilding this which symbolizes our historic relationship with God."

I made my altar on a piece of paper and just for interest's sake, I would like to challenge you to put on each stone the components of what makes up your relationship with God—12 things. I'll give you mine for what it's worth; it doesn't need to be yours. I did this last week and a lady came up so upset and she said, "Oh, I can't think of any! Could I use yours?" Well, of course, if you wish, it doesn't matter a bit. But I would like to think that you will think through yours. There are certain components of our relationship with God that all of us share.

Because I like words, I've used "ity" words just to help me. You don't need to use "ity" words, but as this lady said, "Can I use 'ity' words?" Yes, if you wish, you can use "ity" words. Starting across the bottom and these four stones: my first one's humility of soul—my attitude. Second one's maturity in the Word—the Bible. The third one is ability in prayer—my devotional life. And the fourth one in that line is activity in church—my fellowship component on my altar.

Now the next line—the three stones in the next line. The first two go together: hilarity in giving and frugality in spending—stewardship. The greed need, if you like. Then the next one: purity of heart—holiness. Now there's two on the next line: lucidity of speech for me—that's my service gift that God has given me. Then the next one is availability to my family—that's my relationships.

Then the top—the three at the top: sagacity of mind—that's pushing out the sides of my soul constantly, growing on my mental edge. I was down in Berkeley, California, doing a Presbyterian women's retreat that's right on Berkeley campus. One of the women there is in the seminary—liberal seminary, unfortunately, in the Presbyterian church—and she is the one that interviews the candidates for coming into that seminary. She is an evangelical Christian; she's a brilliant woman.

We were talking, and I said, "Well, what's happening in the seminary? What's happening with all these students that are sitting there? What are they teaching? What's the big issue at the moment, theoretically?" She said, "Well, they're trying to reposition Jesus." I said, "Oh, what are they trying to do?" She said, "Well, the big thing this week is they think that he couldn't possibly have given his son to die because that would be child abuse if the Father had really done that. They can't believe that God is a child abuser, so of course there has to be another answer, so they're trying to reposition Jesus."

When I think about that, I'm thinking, "Can I take them on? Am I doing my homework? When I meet people that are repositioning Jesus, can I reposition back where he should be?" Sagacity of mind. Gaiety of spirit—joy, trust. My trust block—I often have to repair that one. Chastity of thought—that's to do with my femininity and sexuality.

Humility of soul, maturity of the Word, ability in prayer, activity in church, hilarity in giving, frugality in spending, purity of heart, lucidity of speech, availability to my family, sagacity of mind, gaiety of spirit, and chastity of thought. These are building blocks for me. I tell you, if one of those stones isn't in place, I'm not ready to surrender, and God isn't ready to send the fire. It doesn't mean they've all got to be perfectly set; it just means they've not got to be rolling down the hill or covered with moss.

As you put yours together, maybe God is going to show you a very obvious reason why the fire has not fallen on what you've been doing for the Lord the past 20 years. Everything has seemed to be in place, but you've got a ruined altar. Let me just share one story of my holiness block. Actually, I could have used "integrity" there. Integrity—I was standing on the airport going to Berkeley, or trying to, in the middle of the snowstorm we had.

I was six and a half hours on O'Hare trying to get to Berkeley to speak that night, and it was obviously not going to happen. They put us on a plane, they kept us there an hour and a half, and then there was a technical problem with the plane, so they took us all off. We lined up to get put on another plane. There were about eight people in front of me and everyone behind me; they were all literally mad with the poor little guy who was obviously personally responsible for sabotaging the plane, who was trying to reposition us on another plane.

Anyway, he puts us on another plane—later flight—and gives us each a certificate for 25 bucks—the "sorry" certificate. He said, "Put this to your next flight; our airline is really sorry that this has happened." But he said, "Don't go; there'll be a food voucher coming." So ten of us are standing there; he's still dealing with this other line, and the little man comes up to help him and he's got the vouchers in his hand. The guy just hardly looks at him and says, "Give them the vouchers." So he comes to our circle and he begins to hand out, not knowing we've already got the 25-buck certificate, the 25-buck vouchers.

And every single one of those people took it. Everyone of them. I was standing next to the end with my mouth open, thinking, "Now what do I do?" When he came to me, I didn't say it loudly; I said quite quietly, "Thank you very much, I already have one." Well, of course as soon as I said that, he knew that they did too. He turned around, and they had melted—gone. All of them. I think those ten people represented every single echelon of society—rich, poor, black, white, everything.

The man next to me was mad with me as well, because he didn't have a chance to get his 25 bucks. I said, "I just need my food voucher, thank you." Then I had to face them all when I got in that plane at 3:30 in the afternoon, which wasn't very good or very pleasant. But I thought—and I want to tell you something—I was tempted to take it. I was very tempted to take it. I'm not standing here saying, "Oh, it was easy, I just did that," because I'd learned that it would take 50 bucks to make up the difference in the ticket that I had been given for the next flight.

So I knew all I had to do—and the things that went through my mind were things like, "I deserve this! They've messed me up! They deserve to give me 50 bucks." But you see, this building block—integrity—has to be in place. I would not have been ready to give the sacrifice of my service that night at Berkeley when I eventually got there very late and they'd held the service for me, and the fire would not have fallen, I believe, if that stone had been rolling down the mountain.

The altar has to have the pieces in place. Then, of course, you have to get on it and surrender. The Bible talks about a living sacrifice, and wouldn't it be easier if we were dead? We would not crawl off the altar all the time. The problem being a living sacrifice is you don't want to stay there, you don't want to stay surrendered. But you see, the bull was sacrificed morning and evening, morning and evening. It was the fellowship offering. What was that? It was the thing that put you back in fellowship with God. It was the thing that when you repaired your altar, then you made your surrender and your sacrifice of all that you are and all that you have and you say, "Here I am, God. As best as I know how, I'm working on my altar and most of the stones are pretty well in place. Now, Lord."

Then you cry to Him and you say, "Let the fire fall." And then the fire falls. And there's power, there's difference, there's change, there's miracle, there's answered prayer, and there's healing—and always healing of spirit. God will raise him up spiritually. All of that, because the fervent, effective prayer of a righteous, pardoned man avails much. A man like Elijah who made sure that he repaired his altar, made a sacrifice morning and evening, surrendered, and then he cried in a great shout of faith to God, "Show them, Lord!"

And God wants us to do that. We are coming to a King—large petitions with us we bring. We bring Him such small, paltry things. I love it when Elisha is saying goodbye to Elijah before he goes to heaven. Elijah says to him, "What can I do for you?" And Elisha says, "Give me a double portion of your spirit." When I read that, I thought, "What cheek! How could he ask something like that? How greedy!" And yet I realized it's something that God loves. "I want more! I want more of the power of God in my life—more even than he'd seen in the life of Elijah." If we can just get to that point of saying, "I want more, I want more," then maybe we'll attend to these things in our hearts, and the fire will fall.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for the story of Elijah. Thank you for this man who took them on, took the voices of Baal on, the prophets of Baal. And he showed unequivocally who was God. He approached people who were wavering between two opinions, and he said, "Let's have a contest here. Let's see who's powerful. Let's see who listens and answers prayer. Let's see who's got the power."

Lord, we are far too much on the defensive and we're rusty with our spiritual training and arguments. Perhaps the stone of the Bible and maturity in your Word has been rolling down the hillside, lost in the undergrowth. I don't know, but I do know this: that we have to repair the altar that's in ruins every day of our lives. We have to surrender. We have to make that fellowship offering. Then we have to call on you in faith—show them who's God. And then the fire will fall.

Help us, Lord, to think about this altar, the components that make up our relationship with you. As we put the pieces back in place, may you see, may you forgive, may you hear, may you answer prayer that our world might shout, "The Lord, He is God! He is God!" For Christ's sake, Amen.