The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: Even though God did something for us yesterday, over time we forget how good he is and how powerful he is. He's not just a yesterday God. He's not just a tomorrow God. He's a right now God.

Guest (Male): This is the Alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Just when it feels like God is about to sweep in and deliver us from our difficult circumstances, sometimes that's when things go from bad to worse. But that's not the end of the story. And today, Dr. Evans shows us the possibilities we may have been missing. Let's join him in 1 Kings 17 as he begins.

Dr. Tony Evans: There's not too many of us who haven't felt like God made a mistake and we want to challenge him. Maybe we're too scared to say it, but we know what it is to feel it, to think it, and to even talk to other people about it. In fact, when something like this happens, you're too scared to feel too good about something nice that happened.

Such is the case of our next experience with the Prophet Elijah as we look at experiencing the supernatural. Now, this woman has a lot to shout about. I mean, she was down to her last meal. The prophet comes along, tells her what God says. She does what God says and all of a sudden, she's living large. All of a sudden, the last meal becomes an introduction to a whole bunch of meals because of the promises of God. That had to be an exciting house to be in, to see that supernatural move of God.

But wouldn't you know it? Just when there's something to shout about, just when you want to get your praise on, just when you want to celebrate the goodness of God in the land of the living, we come to verse 17. In chapter 17, verse 17, it says: "And it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick, and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him."

Well, there are a couple of observations here as we introduce this story. Observation number one is victory yesterday doesn't mean a new trial won't happen today. The fact that God came through yesterday doesn't mean I won't need him afresh on a new day. Another observation is trials often come in the very same area that victory was previously experienced.

Because victory was experienced in saving the life of her son and now her son, who was the subject of victory, is now the subject of defeat. So the very thing he gave me is what I'm now losing. And so this house of gladness becomes a home of sadness because the very thing that was delivered yesterday, I'm losing today.

So she said to Elijah, verse 18, "What do I have to do with you, O man of God?" I hope you heard that. "What do I have to do with you?" Translation: "I don't want nothing to do with you. What do I have to do with you? I don't want—yeah, I know you're the preacher, I know you're the man of God, but I don't want nothing to do with you. You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and to put my son to death."

You came here to ruin my life. I want nothing to do with you. Implication: and I don't want your God either. How many people know people who don't go to church anymore, don't want God anymore because their circumstances have died on them? Because if God was God and God was real and God was true, this wouldn't happen to me, especially in light of the miracle I saw the other day or the other week or however long it was when he fed me.

So here we have a dilemma, a dilemma we've all faced or know others who've faced it. Elijah then takes over, verse 19. He says to her, "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living and laid him on his own bed. We've got a hurting mama here, and any mother in this situation is going to be hurting.

But we've got a man of God here and he says, "Give me your pain. Hand me your problem." He could have gone theological on her. He could have talked about the attributes of God. He could have talked about the perfections of his personhood. He could have talked about his sovereignty and how he can do what he wants when he wants. He could have talked about his omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. He could have talked about God's veracity, mercy, grace. He could have talked about his love and his truth.

But he's dealing with a woman who's hurting and who's confused theologically and who's about to walk away from God and wants to put him out of the house. And he says, "Hand me your problem. What's the problem? The problem is a dead son. Hand me the thing that's ruining your faith right now."

He takes the boy upstairs and he called to the Lord. Some versions say he cried out. He prays a prayer. He calls to the Lord, "O Lord, my God." Let me pause right there. When you are doubting God and ready to quit on God, you need to have somebody who's still in touch with him. "O Lord, my God." Okay. Okay. She ain't with you right now. She's not hanging with you right now. She's not buying you right now. She's not buying me right now. But I know whose you are.

I'm in touch with you and so I'm going to go to you on her behalf. I'm going to go to you when she can't right now because her situation doesn't allow her to. Her faith is too weak. She's tore up from the floor up. And so I'm going to take her burden and I'm going to go to God. It's called intercession. I'm going to go to God for her because she's too weak to go to God on her own.

And there are not too many people here who have not been in a situation where you don't want to pray, don't feel like praying, think it's a waste of time to pray, don't believe God is listening to you because you're hurting too bad. But Elijah says, "I know who you are. O Lord, my God, you have also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying by causing her son to die."

And then he lays on top of the boy. He stretches his own body on top of the boy, bounces back, comes back a second time and stretches on the boy, bounces back, comes back a third time and lays on the boy. Now, why? The number three in the Bible is used of restoration and resurrection. Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days, three nights before he was restored back to dry land. Jesus Christ died three days, of course, and he was resurrected.

So what you have in the number three is restoration and resurrection. He lays on the boy because we're dealing with—watch this—a dead situation. That means a situation that has no life of its own and that no human being could resolve because the thing has totally collapsed. He has no breath. He has no life left in him. That means he needs restoration or, even stronger, he needs resurrection.

Why does he place his body on the boy in order for this to occur? Let me translate. "Lord, he needs life. He needs breath. I'm going to lay my life on top of his death, and I give you permission to suck my breath from me and exchange it and pour my life into his life so that he can piggyback on my life because he has no life of his own."

God is looking for people who will talk to heaven and stretch out on earth, who will reach to glory but also be usable in history. So he reaches up in prayer, but then he stretches out in sharing his life for the life of the boy who was lost.

So here's our situation. He stretches out. It reminds me of 2 Kings chapter 19. Sennacherib has threatened Israel and Hezekiah and said, "We're going to destroy you like we've destroyed the other nations." He sent a letter. Hezekiah opened the letter, read the threat. Hezekiah went to the temple in verse 14 of chapter 19 of 2 Kings. He goes to the temple and it says he spread out the letter before the Lord.

He said, "God, read this. Read this. Sennacherib is threatening me. And I am scared. I am terrified. So I need you to address him." He let God read the problem himself. He stretched out the letter. Have you ever stretched out a bill before the Lord? Just say, "God, they're threatening to take my house. They're threatening to repo my car. They're threatening to ruin my life. God, read what these bill collectors are saying to me." Just he stretched it out before the Lord.

And so when he did this, something happened. Oh, this is going to get good here. It says he stretched out three times and he called to the Lord and said, "O Lord, my God, I pray you, let this child's life return to him." Now, that's not what you call a small request. Okay, this is not "Now I lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take." That's not "Now, Lord, bless this food to my body in Jesus' name, amen."

No, no, no, because you don't really know how to pray until something has died on you, until a hope has died, a dream has died. You don't because now you cry out to God. Now it's a prayer from the heart, not repeating something you said fifty times all throughout your lifetime or throughout your week. He cries out to the Lord and he's very specific. He says, "Let this life be returned."

We'll learn about the result of that prayer and what it means for us when Dr. Evans returns in just a moment. Before then, I want to tell you about our featured resource, the complete six-part sermon series on the Prophet Elijah. If you grew up in the church, this special collection is full of familiar stories you may have heard in Sunday school. But even if you didn't, it's packed with powerful grown-up lessons on how God provides for our needs, how to live a life full of meaning, how to overcome the fears and anxiety that attack us along the way, and much more.

If you contact us within the next few days, we'd like to send you all six full-length lessons in the Elijah series as our gift. All we ask is that you make a contribution to help us keep this ministry coming to this station and others like it around the world. And as an added bonus, we'll also include a copy of the Prayers for Knowing God book. In it, Dr. Evans provides a number of prayers that can be prayed word-for-word or used as a springboard for your own dialogue with God. Just visit TonyEvans.org, make your contribution, and request your copy of this limited-time double offer. Or give our resource center a call at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our friendly team members help with your request. That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that information after part two of today's lesson. Let's get back to Dr. Evans now in 1 Kings chapter 17.

Verse 22: "The Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he was revived." Okay. He piggybacked off of Elijah's spirituality and it says the child's life returned. We read earlier God took it. We read now God gave him back. So what you just read was God reversing a decision. Stay with me now, theologically.

God took him. God gave him back. In between taking him and giving him back was a prayer and a stretch. The prayer and the stretch caused God to hear and reverse a previous decision to take him. So God reverses the call. I want you to try God at a whole other level for the supernatural. I want you to see God reverse a call in your life.

Something that it looked like he said no to, something it looked like it could never be fixed, something it looked like it could never be changed. And because there was the right person calling on God and stretching out on the need, God reconsidered and reversed his decision. Now, you will find this throughout scripture.

In Exodus chapter 32, Moses lays out a prayer. Verse 11, when Moses entreated the Lord his God and said, "O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak saying, 'With evil intent he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your burning anger and change your mind about doing harm to your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your servants to whom you swore by yourself and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven, and as the land of which I have spoken, I will give it to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" So the Lord changed his mind about the harm which he said he would do to his people.

Okay, let me tell you something. You can change God's mind. Now, I know what you're saying. The Bible says God changeth not. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But you just read that Moses got God to change his mind. Elijah got God to change his mind. Jonah got God to change his mind about the destruction of Nineveh. You will find God regularly changing his mind.

Well, how can a changeless God change his mind? Well, the way a changeless God can change his mind is that you are now appealing to another part of his nature. If you're looking at this part of his nature, like looking at the sun at night, if you change locations, then you will be on the other side of the sun appealing to another part of his nature.

So it's not that the sun has changed, it's that your rotation around it has changed. So now you are appealing to another point of his nature. God, you've got the right to destroy them, but I remember what you said in Genesis. You said in Genesis, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and that you were going to keep your covenant.

So while your wrath is just on this side, I'm going to spin around a little bit and come to another location of where you are, so that I'm now facing the sun of your grace, the sun of your forgiveness. That's why repentance is so important, because repentance means to change your mind in order to reverse your direction.

So when I have disobeyed God and now his just wrath or justice comes against me, but I don't want it anymore, I do an earth rotation and I kind of rotate myself around to another location in order now to sit in front of his grace and mercy because I have repented of my sins. And now the changeless God changes his mind because I've relocated my position.

So you can get the changeless God to change his mind when you are in right relationship. She couldn't pray that way because she was too conscious of her sin. She got Elijah to pray and do a rotation for her. Girl needs the miracle. Elijah doesn't need the miracle. But the way she gets the miracle is through somebody else who could access it for her.

So everybody in here should be one of two people. You should be a widow, that is a person in a need, or you should be an Elijah, somebody God can use to meet a need. Because one day, if you're an Elijah, you're going to be a widow. And one day when God comes through, you may be a widow, but he turns you into an Elijah. He can use you for somebody now because somebody's going to need to be used for you later when your world collapsed.

But it's not over yet. Because in verse 24, it says: "Then the woman said to Elijah, 'Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.'" Wait a minute now. A few verses ago, she called him a man of God. She identified him as a man of God. But she identified him as a man of God while being mad at God and telling him to get out of the house. So she recognizes his position.

But she says, "Now I know." Okay, watch this now. If she is only knowing that now, that means she did not know it before. Because she says, "I know now that you are for real." But wait a minute. Didn't you just have a miracle when God fed you? How come you didn't know it then? When God fed you and you ran out of food. What you mean you know it now when God came through for you a long time ago?

What you mean you know it now after God fed you when you didn't have any food? What you mean you know it now after God gave you a job, put food in your stomach, gave you a raise? What you mean you know it now? Something happens in our lives. Even though God did something for us yesterday, over time we forget how good he is. So guess what God does? He lets something die to remind us that he's a right now God.

He's not just a yesterday God. He's not just a tomorrow God. He's a right now God. So he puts you in a situation where you need him right now. He puts you in a situation to remind you that the God who came through yesterday hadn't died on you, hadn't gone to sleep on you. He lets things die.

Guest (Male): If you're missing something in your life and are ready to ask for God's help, the place to start is by having a personal relationship with him through Jesus Christ. If you're not sure what that means, Dr. Evans would love to help you cut through the confusion by explaining it in clear, simple terms. Just visit TonyEvans.org and follow the link at the top of the homepage that says "Jesus." You'll find everything you need to know, including some free resources to help you. Again, that's TonyEvans.org.

And while you're there, don't forget to take advantage of the special offer I mentioned earlier: the complete Elijah series on CD or digital download, plus Dr. Evans' book, Prayers for Knowing God. They're our way of saying thank you for your contribution of any amount to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. Get the details and make your request online at TonyEvans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222. Our team members are standing by to help you around the clock. That's 1-800-800-3222.

The battle for our hearts and minds is more intense than ever, but you can find the strength and courage to stand firm through Dr. Evans' book, Kingdom Politics. In it, he explores how to navigate the complex world of politics from a biblical perspective and reminds us that our true citizenship is in heaven. To find out more, visit TonyEvans.org.

Tomorrow, a look at what happens when God decides it's time for a direct confrontation between those who serve him and those who don't. I hope you'll join us.

The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.