Boldness in Leadership
Tom Shrader examines the character trait of boldness through Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. He challenges Christians who claim faith but live as practical atheists, calling them to stop wavering between two opinions and make decisive commitments to follow Christ. The teaching emphasizes that bold leaders accept challenging assignments, control hostile encounters, and achieve significant results when they trust God completely.
“How long are you going to say Jesus is my Lord and my Savior, yet He doesn't affect one decision that you make?”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Studies in Leadership
Recorded: March 13, 2003
Duration: 44 min
Themes: boldness, leadership, faith, courage, commitment, character, decision, trust, new to leadership, pastor, elder, struggling with doubt, business leader, mentor, parent, facing difficult decisions
Scripture: 1 Kings 18, 1 Kings 17, Hebrews 11, Luke 9:23, Luke 14:26, Luke 16:27-31, John 11:38-45, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, 2 Corinthians 11
Theological Themes: biblical leadership, practical atheism, servant leadership, biblical authority, spiritual maturity, character development, faithful living, stewardship
Full Transcript
Boldness in Leadership
We are in session seven of this leadership series, with one more session to come. When we've been looking at the topic of leadership, it's from a different perspective than you might expect. If you're coming here looking for a how-to guide on leadership, that isn't going to happen. What we're talking about really are character traits that are associated with leadership.
Just to review them, we talked about humility, which would be a very big surprise for most people that we would start there. That's the starting point. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, that's pretty much the starting point of everything. If C.S. Lewis is right when he says that pride is the ultimate vice, then humility becomes really the ultimate virtue, and as a leader, it becomes an instrumental virtue. We talked about loyalty and vision and confidence, accountability, responsibility last week. Next week, we're going to bookend this series - we start with humility and we're going to end with servant leadership, but today we talk about the issue of boldness in leadership.
We've been talking about character traits, not how-to. Character traits with the idea that this is what a leader needs to be, and then what a leader needs to do will start to flow out of that. I'm not saying you don't need to talk about the doing part - I'm just saying it's not the emphasis of what we're talking about here.
The Need for Character in Times of Change
Markets change. Obviously, as you sit and watch television today, you see a world in a state of flux and all sorts of things that are going on. In times like this, in any industry or any country or any enterprise, what you're looking for are character traits.
Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things. That's Warren Bennis. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but for me personally, it was huge to understand that if we're going to categorize people in terms of the marketplace, they tend to fall in three areas. They tend to fall in the originator, the organizer, and the operator.
The originator is the entrepreneur - the person that gets something started. The organizer comes in and puts a form to it, and the operator manages it. I was with a guy talking about this business he had started three or four years ago. He is originator, he is an entrepreneur, and he's very much involved in the operations of it. This is what I've seen with friends who have started businesses at all levels - the entrepreneur begins it, but along comes operations. The last things they tend to add is the organizational part. This guy said, and he's doing very well, "If I don't get somebody in here to organize, I'm just going to shut it down. I'll just go do something else. I can't handle this." Generally, you're going to function best in one of those areas: an originator, an organizer, or an operator.
Leadership Myths Debunked
Here are some myths about leadership that I think are pretty reliable to address. The first one is that leadership is a rare skill. We started by encouraging you to understand that virtually everybody in this room is a leader. Now, if we're talking about CEO levels, there aren't a lot of Jack Welches running around, and I don't even know if that's a good or bad thing in and of itself. But there aren't a lot of those mega leaders running around, though there are a lot of leaders running around. They're not just one in a million people.
Here's the second myth: leaders are born, not made. That's a myth. It's not that you come out of the factory, and if you don't have the leadership trait, there's no dealer add-on to this. I think you can learn to lead. Let's take parenting, for example. If parenting is leadership, I know many people have learned to parent. I'll speak autobiographically - I think I've learned in the structure we now have with a staff probably of fifty or sixty people, and I think I've learned a lot of those leadership skills.
Here's the third myth: that leaders are charismatic. There was a book written about three years ago called Good to Great. Some of you have read that book. If you're in business and you haven't read that book, it's a terrific book to read. The premise is the authors take companies - two companies in the same industry that are good companies - one becomes great, and the other either fades away or stays where it was. They try to determine why that happens, and they tried at the very beginning to blow away some of these leadership myths.
Bold Leaders Require Minimal Communication
One of the myths about leadership is that companies that moved to greatness have these dynamic, Lee Iacocca-type leaders. But that's not the case at all. Most often, it's somebody who's been there 10, 15, 20 years—a steady plotter, keeps his head down, no flash, no flare—and that's what moves a company along.
Here's the fourth myth: that leaders exist only at the top of an organization. That should fall easy based on what we've talked about. You have leaders at every rung of an organization, or every aspect of life. And lastly, that leaders control, direct, prod, manipulate. I had lunch with a guy yesterday, and he was talking about the most influential person in his business. He said it was a guy he worked for for three years, and he taught me everything that I learned that I wanted to make sure I never did when I started a business. He said he was authoritative, he was firing people for no reason. We'll talk a lot about that next week in terms of service.
Here's what we're looking at today: the issue of boldness. If you have a Bible with you today, it is going to be very helpful to you, and I'd encourage you to open it to 1 Kings, in the 18th chapter. We began, when we looked at this study, to say we want to look at these character traits, then we want to grab a biblical model, or role model for this, and we've kept that up as a pattern.
We look today at the life of Elijah. Elijah lives 28, 29 hundred years ago. He is a prophet. He's a lonely man, and he's got a lonely figure. As we pick up the story, you're going to see Elijah in a fabulous setting where he sees God work in an extraordinary way.
A Word for Everyone
Generally, in a lesson, we're talking to everybody in the room. By that I mean, if you're here and you're not a Christian—and that frequently is the case, people bring friends—you may be a church goer, or you just may be antagonistic or agnostic, but you're here nonetheless. We typically have something for you, and again, I'll make a couple comments about that today.
But the emphasis today is to those of you who would say you're Christians, you're followers of Christ. You would acknowledge that Jesus is your Lord, your Master, your Savior. We're going to talk a lot about what's life like after that. Now you're following Him, and I hope that it's helpful to you.
Elijah has—look at chapter 18, verse 1. It's our first point on our outline. Bold leaders require minimal communication. "After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah." He hasn't heard now from God for three years. As you read chapter 17, while you'll see God do some extraordinary things in his life and around him, you also see that there's this loneliness and there's silence.
Don't Judge Your Spiritual Condition by Your Physical Circumstances
We're going to stop two or three times today, hit the pause button, stop, and try to make some points to you. Here's the first point: Don't make the mistake of judging your spiritual condition by your physical circumstances. It is a tragic error to judge your spiritual condition—to think, because you have problems, you're necessarily in a bad spiritual place.
It is Paul who asks three times for the Lord to remove the thorn in the flesh, and we have no idea what that is, but we know He didn't do it. It would be tragic to look at Paul and say, "Gee, here's Paul," and we look at, in 2 Corinthians 11, we look at all the hardship in Paul's life and say, "Gosh, there must be something wrong with this guy, otherwise he wouldn't have any hardship."
If you watch Christian television, it would be easy to get the idea that if you had the slightest problem, something's wrong with you spiritually. We try to scream this from the rooftops: God may want you poor, and God may want you sick, and the teaching that's contrary to that is so destructive. First of all, it's not biblical, but it's so destructive.
When Hardship Isn't From Sin
Now, you may have some tragic situations around you because of your sin. If you make bad decisions and you're involved in sin, there's consequences to that. But it's not necessarily true that if you have difficulties in your life, it's because you've sinned. It may be that God's got you right where He wants you.
The premise is so simple, most of us don't learn when things are going well. It's just simply the case. If I start over here and we go around the room and I say, "You tell me where you saw God work the most, you tell me a time when you learned the most, when you saw the greatest lesson," 90% of you will go to a time of hardship. It's just the way it is.
When things are going well, we become very self-sufficient and arrogant and boastful and proud. It's just the way it is. Look at your prayer life. When do you pray the most? Right after 9-11, our church is in an industrial park. Right after 9-11, we had people from Auto Body World, Dillard's Warehouse—we had people from all over saying, "You've got to open the doors and let us pray, let us pray."
That's fine, that's good, I have no problem with that. And for two weeks, we saw them, just like most of you did, and then they're gone. That is history. See, there's something about hard times where we can learn a lot.
God's Perfect Timing
Elijah hasn't heard from God for three years. Why? Because God's got him right where He wants him. God's going to talk to him at exactly the right time.
You don't need to turn there, but there was a guy on television the other night, and he's reading Hebrews chapter 11. I'm laughing, and I'm saying, "I bet I can tell you where this guy's going to stop." And he's reading along, and he's just rocking and rolling, and he's just blowing through there. He's talking about—"I don't have time," verse 32—"I don't have time to tell you about all that's done." He's talking about these men who by faith conquered kingdoms and performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises.
shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword from the weakness they were made strong, and became mighty in war, put foreign enemies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection." And I said, "Stop!" And sure enough, he stops right there. He isn't going to finish that verse. He isn't going to finish Hebrews chapter 11, verse 35, because the next part of it says this: "Others were tortured, not accepting their release. Others experienced mockings and scourging, yes, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two."
Both of these are illustrations of people of faith and the hall of fame of faith. That's the way it is. Well, Elijah hasn't heard from God now for three years. And now, the word of the Lord comes to Elijah.
Elijah Receives His Orders
He has an arch enemy in this story. His arch enemy is a guy by the name of Ahab. God says this: "Go present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain." That's a very important point. The issue here is that Elijah said, "There's not going to be any more rain." God shut the rain off. And one of the gods, in fact, we'll see the god here that Ahab and his people are worshiping, is the god Baal, part of a fertility god, and part of that was he delivered rain. Very important part of the story. "You go see Ahab, I'll send rain in the land." So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab.
First point is, he hasn't heard much. Now he does. Second point: bold leaders accept challenging assignments.
Meeting Obadiah
Look at chapter 18, verse 7, verse 10, verse 14 and 15. We meet a third guy who's in this cast of characters, Obadiah. Obadiah is walking along and Elijah met him and Obadiah recognized Elijah, bowed down to the ground and said, "Is that really you, my lord?" "As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation where my master has not sent someone looking for you." Ahab is out looking for Elijah. Elijah is on the run.
Obadiah is, in a sense, kind of an undercover agent here. He is a man of God who's part of Ahab's staff, and he tells Elijah, "Listen, he's sent guys all over this world looking for you. He's looking high and low for you. Whenever a nation or a kingdom claims that you weren't there, he made them swear they couldn't find you." They had to take an oath, and, by the way, if they were to find him there, they would kill him.
And so Obadiah says, "And now you tell me to go to my master and say Elijah's here? He's going to kill me. There's no way I'm going to do this." Now, look at this. Elijah said, "As surely as the Lord Almighty lives whom I serve, I will present myself to Ahab today." Now, obviously, he's being obedient to the Lord. The other word, again, for me, is emphasized: today.
The Power of Today
It was quite a few years ago now. Some people who said they loved me sent me to time systems, and that was a forerunner of palm pilots and all that goes with it. It was a paper and pencil, very good way to organize yourself. And so they sent me to this thing. I'm not an organized person, so they sent me to this thing. And that's where you took and you made a list of things you had to do, and then you ranked them A, B, C, D, and then at the end of the day you tried to do all your A's, and then the next day you brought the things over you didn't do.
And I noticed a pattern for me. I would spend most of the day trying to figure out what was an A, and I was very, very good at taking the things I didn't want to do and making them a D. And that was just me. I'm not putting that system down because I've got friends for whom it worked terrific. It's just not my deal. Here's my deal: You've got to figure out what the priorities are and do them. And if it's something you don't want to do, you've got to do it first. You've just got to get it out of the way.
I think from the front, at least I hear from different people, I'm fairly confrontational from the front, so I acknowledge that. But the minute that tape recorder's off, I'm a wuss. I'm not confrontational. I avoid confrontation as much as I can. Unfortunately, I have to participate in some of it. And here's what I've learned: Most often, the fallout's not near as great as you think it's going to be. And you'll put it off, and put it off, and put it off, until it gets worse and worse and worse. You've got to do it.
So here's what happened. Ahab says, "I'll go today." Bold leaders accept challenging assignments. Here's the third thing: bold leaders answer direct confrontation.
The Confrontation
Obadiah went to meet with Ahab. We're in verse 16, 17, and 18. And he told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And when he saw Elijah, he said to him, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" In other words, this is your fault. There's drought in the land. There's lots of problems. And he's saying, "You caused all of this, you troublemaker."
Elijah replied, "I have not made trouble for Israel, but you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the Lord's commandments and have followed the Baals." Now there's confrontation here.
We did a series called "Integrity Under Fire." It was a study of the life of Daniel. And one of the lessons was creativity over compromise. In other words, there are times when you're in conflict, but you don't have to compromise any of your values. You can creatively find a way to deal with these and put them in place and retain those values.
Non-Negotiable Values
Having said that, there are some values that you can never compromise. I just, in fact, last Sunday at church did a lesson on six non-negotiables for us as a church. Core issues. We'll never change them. It doesn't matter what they are. They're not under study. They're not under consideration, and they never will be. They're in place, and they'll never change. And clearly, Elijah's pointing out a non-negotiable. You're worshiping a false god.
Let me hit the pause button here again. I fear that we're living at a time when the church, and I'm not talking about worldwide, I can't even get my arms around that, where the church in this country, even in this city, has really lost sight of its call.
Reading from a transcript from Larry King from a week ago when John MacArthur was on there with Max Lakedo and a Catholic priest and a Methodist bishop and Bob Jones. The question basically came up about salvation. The Methodist bishop could not have been more anti-biblical or more of a heretic. It was awful. Go log on to CNN.com, go to Larry King and pull up the archives and read the transcript.
This guy is saying, "Listen, I'm not about to say Jesus is the only way." Larry King says, "Well, wait a minute. Do you believe your religion is true?" And he said, "Well, yeah." And he said, "Well, then if your religion is true, their religion is false." And he said, "No, no, no, not at all." Well, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's the case right there.
Either Jesus is who He said He was or He isn't. Either this Bible is the word of God or it's not. If it's not, what in the world are we doing here? If Jesus is not the only way, why would we spend one dime on missions? I mean, this is so obvious. If you've got a guy who's never heard the gospel, but he can be saved by his own good works or his own faith or whatever, why would you screw him up with a missionary? It makes no sense at all.
The Decline of Biblical Truth in Churches
Even in the Methodist church, there was a day when Jesus was the only way. And then these churches are just shrinking. The reason they're shrinking is they're walking away from their core, fundamental beliefs of what's true. People who are saved aren't going to put up with that.
They're not going to listen to ordained homosexuals. They're not going to watch women preach. They're not going to listen to something other than the word. You can't compromise on these things. I don't care what the music's like. That's a preferential issue. Some people like this, some people like that. I don't care, whatever. But you can't compromise this.
That's what Elijah would say if he was walking around the street today. He'd stop at most churches and he'd say, "Listen, you guys have walked away from the Lord and you're following the gods of the culture. It's not acceptable."
Bold Leaders Anticipate Overwhelming Odds
Here's the fourth thing: bold leaders anticipate overwhelming odds. Don't think that because you necessarily take this stand that everybody's going to love you. Now, I'll give you the flip side of this. Some of my friends, and I tend to hang out with a lot of orthodox, fundamental, evangelical, conservative, born-again rednecks. I hang around a lot of these guys.
Part of the problem that these guys have is they think unless they've got people shooting at them from everywhere, they're not taking a stand. In other words, you're going to suffer. They would never accept that you could have a large church and be biblical because they would say, "No, you've compromised somewhere. You're going to have overwhelming odds." But where the word is preached, people tend to respond.
Look at the odds here. 1 Kings 18:19. Here's what Elijah says to Ahab: "Now summon people from all over Israel and meet at Mount Carmel." They believe that's where Baal resided. It was a sacred place, his dwelling place. "And bring 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table." Asherah was the female goddess, the counterpart of Baal.
So here's what Elijah is saying to Ahab: "You go and get 850 prophets and I'll come to Mount Carmel and we'll meet there." Here's the odds: 850 to 1. Put it in terms we can understand. This, for Elijah, is an away game. He's not playing this on his home court. Not going to have the pep band down in the corner. This is an away game for Elijah. And again, you have to admire this stand.
Here's what I've observed: lots of people take these hard stands or lots of people can stand up for the Lord, even in just moral decisions, in church, when it's 850 to 1 the other way. Or a lot of them can, even in here. But when you get out into the world, with intimidating odds like 1 to 1, it's very easy to start to move away. Elijah's not afraid of this. He says, "Bring them all up to God."
Bold Leaders Demand Decisive Action
Number 5: bold leaders demand decisive action. So Ahab went throughout all of Israel and he assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. And Elijah went before the people and he said—and you can assume that this is a pause—"How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. If Baal is God, follow him. But the Lord is God."
Look at the people: "But the people had nothing to say." Again, I don't want to be argumentative, but I do think that's the case of what I see in so many men and women who call themselves Christians. It's become just culturally accepted to be a Christian. Lots of people just call themselves Christians for a variety of reasons.
And I'm not kidding here. I've heard so many of them. You've heard maybe better than me. I've had people say to me, "Listen, I drive a Chevy, I was born in Kansas, I'm a Christian." Well, you're a farmer, you're not a Christian. I have a very good friend who was pouring his life out to his mom as she's dying, trying to pray that God would save her. He was trying to explain to his mother the consequences of her sin and she said, "Son, I'm a Christian." Here was hers: "I pay my taxes."
What Makes a Christian
Well, here's what a Christian is: A Christian is a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, who have come to that point in their life when they understand Jesus Christ was sent by God to do what they couldn't do for themselves. Because all men are sinners and separated from God by that sin, and the wage of sin is death.
When you say, "Listen, God, here's the deal: you don't bother me, I won't bother you. Here's the deal, God: all I want is what I deserve. I just want what I've earned," God says, "No problem. Here's what you've earned: the wage of sin is death." And that means sin and spiritual separation, Romans 3:23. But Romans 6:23: "The wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ."
And there is no other way. Now, if you're at that point where you're calling yourself a Christian, let me just say to you, but your life's not changed. You look like everybody else. You're involved in sex outside of marriage. You're going to cheat on your taxes in another month just like everybody else. If there's a big situation and you're involved in it, you're going to cheat if you can to get the deal. You hate and you're prejudiced just like everybody else. Then let me say to you what Elijah says. How long are you going to waver between these two opinions?
The hardest thing I do every year is summer camp. And it starts June 13th this year. We'll take about 600 junior high, high school kids over to San Diego. Hardest thing I do every year. And seven sessions teaching these kids. One of the first things I try to do in the very first session, I make two points. Number one, you keep telling me you want to be treated like an adult. I'm going to treat you like an adult. Number two, if you're not a Christian and you've been tagging along just to placate mom and dad, now's the time to declare your paganism. Now's the time to tell us you're a pagan.
Don't just be morally compliant. Don't just speak here because mom or dad says it. Now's the time to declare you're a pagan. Because you're screwing us all up when you say you're a Christian but you act like a pagan. We have no choice. If you've got people around you that say they're Christians and they act like pagans, let me give you a tip here. They're pagans. When I say to you, is so and so a Christian, you say, well I'm not really sure. He's not.
The Cost of Discipleship
Jesus says it this way. In Luke chapter 9, verse 23, Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." There's a cost related to this. Jesus is clear with His disciples. He doesn't try in any way to hide this truth.
Here you go. Here's Jesus speaking. We have this picture of Jesus, old baby Jesus, meek and mild. Jesus walking around with a little sheep on His shoulders and just saying get the little kids come to me and love, love, love. All you need is love. Here's what Jesus says, Luke 14:26. "If anyone comes after me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he can't be my disciple." Here's what He's saying. If you're holding anything back, you're not going to be a follower of me. The cost of this is huge.
Now how long are you going to jack around with this? How long are you going to say this is the word of God, yet you never read it? How long are you going to say Jesus is my Lord and my Savior, yet He doesn't affect one decision that you make? You're trying to be a Christian, at least in appearance, but you're a practical atheist. In other words, you're making all your decisions and living all your life as though He doesn't exist. How long are you going to do this?
Bold Leaders Control Hostile Encounters
Well, it gets really interesting here. It's point six, and there's a lot of reading in here, so bear with me. Bold leaders control hostile encounters. I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest version here. Here's what happens. Elijah says, look it, I'm only one prophet, the only one of the Lord's left. You got all these other prophets. Get two bulls and bring them out, and then you guys choose which one you want. Then we're going to cut them up, and we're going to put them on these altars, but we're not going to light any fire. What we're going to do is call down God to bring down fire, and then whoever God answers, their God's the true God.
This scene starts to unfold, and in verse 25-ish, Elijah says to the prophets of Baal, choose the bull, prepare the one, and so they took the bull given to them, they prepared it, and they called in the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us," they shouted, and there was no response. No one answered. They danced around the altar.
About noon, I love this, Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder. Surely he is a God." Now listen to this, and then I'm going to come back and really give a punch to this. "Perhaps he's deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." Now, traveling they would get because they thought Baal was also a God who would protect these sailors as they would be in the Mediterranean and other dangerous places. So they understand that. Busy here. The word is translated busy. Perhaps he's deep in thought, contemplative here, or he's busy. In the Hebrew it means literally relieving himself. The living Bible says, "perhaps he's on the toilet." Your God's in the can.
He's traveling. Shout. And they shouted louder. They slashed themselves. Midday passed. They continued with this frantic prophesying until the time came for the evening sacrifice. There was no response, no answer. No one paid attention to them.
Bold Leaders Choose Courageous Strategies
Verse 7, bold leaders choose courageous strategies. Talk about laying it all out. Elijah's going to lay it all out here. He said, "Come to me," and they came to him, and they repaired the altar of the Lord. Apparently in all their dancing and shouting, they knocked his altar over, so they put it back together.
Here's what he says now. He said, "I want you to take this. I want you to get water. I want you to dig a trench around this sacrifice. I want you to pour water all over this. Then I want you to do it a second time. Then I want you to do it a third time, because I want everybody to see that this isn't about me. This isn't about a trick. This is a God thing." So the third time they did it, and the water ran down around the altar and even filled the trenches.
At the time of the sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forth. "Oh God, God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, and I'm your servant, and have all these things done at your command."
Answer, oh Lord. Answer me, so the people will know that you, oh Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back to them. That's pretty bold. God, I'm going to trust you. No gimmicks. No reserves.
Bold Leaders Achieve Significant Results
It's the eighth point: Bold leaders achieve significant results. Verse 38: "Then the fire of the Lord came down, burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stone, the soil, also licked up the water in the trenches. When all the people saw this, they felt prostrate and cried, 'Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God.'" Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let any of them get away." They seized them. Elijah had them brought down to the valley of Kishon and slaughtered them there.
Here's what I want you to see. This is an Old Testament story. When I use the word story, I don't mean fable. Did this actually happen? You bet your boots it actually happened.
The Challenge of Faith
Maybe you're sitting there today—I have a friend, I have more than one, but I have a friend who watched me when I was converted and my life radically changed. After a period of a year or so, when he said it looks like this is going to stick, he said, "I wish I had faith like you have. I wish I could believe like you believe." I said, "Let's make sure we understand. You can, you just won't." He said, "No, I just don't have faith like this. I'd love to have faith like this."
Here's what he said to me. I'll bet you've had people say this to you, or maybe you've said it yourself: "If I just could see a miracle, I'd believe."
The Story of Lazarus
If you've got your Bibles, I love this story. John chapter 11, and we'll close. We've got five minutes here. I'm going to give you a little bit of instruction here. First of all, I think it's wise—I didn't say it by way of disclaimer—don't try this Elijah thing at home. Don't go home and build an altar and call down fire.
John chapter 11, there's a magnificent story. The guy's name is Lazarus. He has sisters. Jesus loves Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Jesus hangs out at their place. Their home is a base of operation for Him. Lazarus is sick. The word comes to Jesus that Lazarus is sick, and His disciples thought, "Boy, once He heard that, He'd want to go home and heal His favorite guy, or one of His favorite guys." Jesus doesn't move, and they're stumped by that. Then the word comes that he's dead, and Jesus still doesn't move, and they're stumped by that. Now Jesus heads back, and Lazarus' sisters seem a little perturbed with Jesus in the sense that they're saying, "If He'd have come, maybe he would have been saved. You could have spared him." Jesus knows exactly what He's doing.
Look at verse 38, chapter 11: "Therefore Jesus again, being deeply moved within, came to the cave." This is the cave where Lazarus is buried. "Now is the cave, and the stone is lying against it, and Jesus said, 'Remove the stone.'" Martha, the sister of Lazarus, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there'll be a stench, for he's been dead four days."
So there's no question here. This isn't a bait-and-switch. This isn't a matter of resuscitation. This guy is dead. They assume he's dead. They've prepared his body as though he's dead. They said, "If we roll that stone away, he's going to stink. The body's decaying."
Jesus said, "Didn't I say to you, if you believe, you'll see the glory of God?" And they removed the stone. Jesus raised His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me, and I knew that You hear Me always, but because of the people standing around I said this, that they might believe." And when He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth."
Verse 44: "And he who had been dead came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth." He had the burial clothing around him, and Jesus said, "Unbind him and let him go."
The Most Fascinating Part
That's an incredible story. When you were kids, you probably heard that story over and over again, and you've probably heard it preached many, many times, and you've probably heard it as a picture of resurrection and miracles and all that. To me, the most fascinating part of this story is verse 45. Verse 45 said, "Many, therefore, of the Jews who had come to Mary beheld what He had done and believed."
How can that not say all? You're standing there, and you're watching Jesus, and you've been saying all along, "Gee, I'd really believe this guy if I could see a miracle. If I could just see a miracle, if He just really did something, if He raised somebody from the dead." And now He does it, and you go, "Well, how about another miracle?" How much of this do you need to see?
You're here today, and you know what, you're saying, "If I could just see a guy rise from the dead."
The Rich Man and Lazarus
There's another story, this time in Luke chapter 16, that has a guy named Lazarus. This Lazarus is a different Lazarus. He's a poor man who used to hang around the table of a rich man, and he would eat the scraps. He'd compete with the dogs to eat off the table. The rich man dies, and the rich man goes to hell. Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom.
The rich man says, "Can you let Lazarus just dip his finger in water and bring me a drop to relieve the torture and the pain and the thirst?" And he says, "No, that isn't going to happen." And he says this then: "Okay, if you're not going to do that, I beg you," Luke 16:27, "Father, that you send him to my father's house. I have five brothers that he may warn them lest they also come to this place of torment."
Lots of times in a funeral, when I'm doing a funeral, almost every time, I'll say, "You know what, if old Bill here, this dead guy, if old Bill could come back to life, what do you think he would do right now? If Bill could come in today and talk, what do you think he'd say?" And I don't think, even though you might all think it, I don't think he'd run to his wife and give her a kiss, run to the kids and give them a hug.
I think if Bill came to life at that point and only had a moment to do one thing, I think he'd run to all of you and say, there's a hell and you don't want any part of it. That's what the story teaches. He said, go to my brother's house, tell them to repent so they won't come to this place. But Abraham said to them, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear. But he said, no, Father Abraham, if somebody goes to them from the dead, they'll repent. But Abraham said, if they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, neither are they going to be persuaded if somebody rises from the dead.
When they have Moses and the prophets, here's what He's saying: they got this word. You're sitting here today and you're saying you want to see a miracle. There's miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. And you don't want to believe them because you won't believe them. But you need to understand that this is not a small issue. This determines eternal salvation.
The Urgency of Eternal Reality
This war, I found myself in a kind of a woozy state last night as this starts because I'm afraid it's become a little bit like a video game for some of us and it's so removed and yet it's probably very necessary. There are people, they'll start today, they're going to wait until it's dark, so between probably 10 and 2 or 3 our time, they're going to let this baby go. The term as you saw last night is shock and awe. And my sense is they're going to rock and roll this thing.
There are people tonight who are going to leave this world and go straight to hell or heaven based on their relationship with Christ. This is serious stuff. If you're a leader, and most of you are, if you're a leader, you better understand the most important thing that you can do as a leader is to communicate the most important issues to the people who are following you. And there is no issue more important or more significant than this.
We've got to go, we're over time. Next week we're going to talk about servant leadership. Leadership isn't just a dictator who pokes and prods and manipulates. A leader, a servant leader is one who supports and loves and encourages.
Prayer
Let's pray. Father, thank You for these truths. Thank You for Your word. And God, we do pray for the men and the women and the children who are in the midst of what's going on in Iraq and Kuwait, maybe Israel. God, we pray for Your protection. We pray that Your will is done.
And God, in our own lives, we touch the hearts here of those who say they're Christians, and yet they're not living it. Will You say to them, today's the day, this is it. How long are you going to waver here? And to those that are here, or listen to this tape, and they're not Christians, would You help them understand that there is no other way but through Your Son Jesus. And that means brokenness and repentance. It's that simple.
There's no other way. There's no church that's going to save them. There's nothing. No action, no works. They're saved by grace through faith. No other way. And without that truth, they're lost for all eternity. Father, teach us that truth. Put it in our heart. We pray that to You in Christ's name. Amen.
See you next week.