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There are some sermons that God gives me as I read the Bible or a Commentary on the Bible, and then sometimes God quickens something to my mind in everyday living as a strong impression. But every once in a while, God will speak a thought directly to me and I know that it is Him because I have not even been thinking about what He is telling me. Last Sunday night, when the Spirit of God was moving so strongly and in such a sweet way, I felt like God spoke to me this phrase: "I need people with the spirit of Elijah." As is sometimes the case, God gave the initial thought and then left it up to me to figure out what He meant. This sermon is a result of studying to try to see what the Lord meant from His quickening in my spirit.

"I need people with the spirit of Elijah." I immediately knew the chapter in which the phrase was found. I even knew the story. The reference which the Lord quoted is found only in one place, the first chapter Luke. It's a familiar story that happened immediately before the birth of Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah had prophesied that there would be a forerunner, an evangelist, a mighty prophet that would be "a voice crying in the wilderness" that would prepare the way for Jesus' ministry. The couple that God chose to give such a child to was an older couple who had no children. The man was a Levitical priest named Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth. They were far beyond the childbearing age and had yet been praying for God to give them offspring so long that Zacharias, at least, had stopped believing that it would ever happen. It's interesting to note the number of promised, special, and anointed children that were given to people that were barren or past the age of childbearing. Isaac, Joseph, Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist were all products of such a circumstances. Maybe God brings children of a special calling into such circumstances because He knows that in such cases, the children will not be neglected or taken for granted but will be received and nurtured with joy and thanksgiving! In like measure, it seems that God will wait until a church or individual is desperate for a revival of "new births" before true Apostolic revival comes, sometimes, because God wants His new people to receive the care and love and attention that they need to grow! But I digress from my topic...

Zacharias' job was to make sure that the incense was burning in the temple of God day and night. As he was going into the temple one ordinary morning, he was startled to see angel standing there. Because the duties of incense were one of the first orders of the day, Zacharias was used to entering the temple alone and immediately knew that this "man in white" was an angelic messenger. This was the first visible angelic activity in 400 years so naturally, Zacharias was a bit startled to seem him there. The angel told him "Fear not" (much needed words when you suddenly walk into a room and see an angel standing there, unexpectedly) and then informed Zacharias that he and Elisabeth were going to have a son, and that his name was to be called John!

Let me digress one more time from my point and then I'll promise to stick to my subject. That the scripture records that Zacharias was in charge of the incense was no accident. The incense represented our praise and prayer to God that should continually go up to heaven. The promised child only came when they were faithful in their praise and prayer. Despite never having felt God's presence and never having heard the anointed preaching of a prophet of God. Despite never having any assurance that God was hearing him, and despite the increasing age of his wife and still no baby, Zacharias kept praying and kept worshipping! Some of us who grow so despondent when a few weeks go by and we don't see God hopping to work everything out like we wanted could learn a lesson from Zacharias! Supernatural births -- even today -- come from persistent and faithful prayer and praise!

Not only that, but we eventually find in the story that Zacharias didn't really believe the angel even when he heard the promise, despite the fact that it was exactly what he had been praying for that was being confirmed by a heavenly being! Sometimes we pray for things so long and get our hopes up for so long that we are standing at the moment of our miracle and at the place of revival and yet we refuse to seize the opportunity because it is something that we have been praying for a long time! Our revival is here! Stop being discouraged and get your eyes off of your long prayers and your eyes on the harvest that is around you!

But back to the point. As the angel begins to speak to Zacharias about this son, he begins to tell just how special this son would be. He would be great in the sight of the Lord. He would be separated unto the Lord and live a life of holiness as a Nazarite and would refuse to be ordinary. He would have a special anointing of the Holy Ghost greater and different than any other prophet that ever lived. This child's anointed preaching would turn many of the people in the country back to God and the child would be the promised forerunner to God's visit. He would go before the Messiah to prepare the way of the Lord! And not only that, the angel makes an interesting statement and one that if it had not been for the quickening of the Holy Ghost, I might have never thought about. The angel says that John the Baptist would go "in the spirit and power of Elijah." This child would be "in the spirit and power of the prophet Elijah!"

Now I know that there is prophecy being fulfilled here and that Malachi ended the Old Testament by telling of how God would send Elijah before His coming to earth. I understand that Elijah is one of the two men in the Bible that never died but were taken alive by God. I understand that the Pharisees didn't understand that God was coming to the earth twice: once in redemption, and the second in judgment. I understand that Jesus Christ, Himself, said that John the Baptist was "His Elijah" for His first coming and yet Elijah will come before the second coming as one of the two witnesses (see Matthew 17:10-13; Revelation 11:3-11; Malachi 4:5-6). And so John the Baptist had to be "in the spirit and power of Elijah" to answer to that prophecy and so that "all righteousness" should be fulfilled. I understand the prophetic implications of what the angel was telling Zacharias and I believe with all my heart that John the Baptist was in the spirit and power of Elijah in fulfilling his ministry. But, what does it mean? Exactly HOW was he in the spirit and power of Elijah and what does it mean to be so? And more importantly, if God wants this church to be in the spirit and power of Elijah, then what must we do to be so? Let's answer the question by going all the way back to the Old Testament record of Elijah's life and see what things that John the Baptist had in common with him and then we have our answer. Then we will know what it is that the "Spirit sayeth to the churches."

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To be in the spirit and power of Elijah means that:

That was the primary ministry and calling of Elijah. He lived in a time where Israel had fallen into worship of several gods, the idols of Baal and Asherah being chief. The king of Israel, King Ahab was not only an evil sinner, but married what could have been the most worldly woman recorded in scripture, that conniving woman, Jezebel. Jezebel hired a couple of hundred of prophets of Baal to lead the people in idolatrous worship and all sort of sinful ceremonies and made it a law that to worship the one, true Jehovah God of Israel was a crime punishable by death!

The very name "Elijah" means "Jehovah is my God!" And the worship and the influencing of others to worship the one, true God became Elijah's "candy stick" and purpose of life. It was popular to worship Baal, and "everyone" was doing it, but Elijah dared to stand against the traditions of men and worship the one, true, living God even if it meant going against public opinion to do so -- even if it meant risking his own life! And even if it ticked off the most influential people in the entire land. Elijah wasn't going to back down from the truth of God's Word that had not changed since Moses wrote it:

When John the Baptist burst upon the scene, he was in the same spirit and power. By his time, the Pharisees had turned worship of the one, true God into a man-made tradition of rituals and religion. When you follow traditions of men and ritual, then you are worshipping the ritual more than the creator and are just as much as an idolater as the prophets of Baal! But John the Baptist went against the status quo of his day and proclaimed that God wanted someone to worship Him with all of their heart again and that men needed to repent and get rid of the traditions of men that they had substituted for a relationship with the true God of Israel. Because of his boldness and anointing, John the Baptist wasn't the most popular person with the religious rulers of his day and in fact would eventually lose his head for his preaching, but despite all of that, in the spirit of Elijah, John the Baptist chose NOT to bow no matter what influential person or how many people believed the false religion.

God needs people today who are living in the end times before His second coming to have the same spirit and power! We must be in the spirit of Elijah. And that means that we must stand up for worshipping and loving only the one, true God of the Bible. There is not a trinity; there is not a "binity." There is not more than one person in the Godhead, but rather one person, manifested and revealed to man in different roles. And His name, the name of Jesus, is still the only saving name just as scripture says! I don't care how many people believe otherwise and I don't care how many influential people believe otherwise. I don't give a rip what Billy Graham or any other TV personality says. To be in the spirit and power of Elijah, we must stand for this precious truth of the Oneness of God! We must never compromise and we must preach and teach it to all who come into this fold! There is only one God, and knowing and learning His identity is the first step to having a close relationship with Him! It does matter! Because to believe otherwise is to fall into a subtle trap of idolatry!

Elijah eventually got tired of all of the lies proclaimed by the prophets of Baal and decided to challenge them to a contest between their gods and His God! What follows is one of the "funnest" stories in the Bible and one of the scenes that I would have liked to "been there" when it happened. Because the god Baal was supposedly the god of fire and of the sky and of lightening, Elijah proposed that both the prophets of Baal and he both build an altar and which ever "god" answered with fire falling from heaven to consume the sacrifice would be proclaimed the real God. Because the Baal prophets often performed a little trickery by building little tunnels under their altars through which some sort of flammable agent could be placed to suddenly cause "fire" to appear from Baal, Elijah chose for the contest to be held out on the mountainside away from their "rigged" altars and tomfoolery. He also chose Mt. Carmel a place where he knew that there was an old altar to Jehovah God.

The story is found in 1 Kings chapter 18 and begins with Elijah graciously allowing the prophets of Baal to go first. They built their altar, placed their wood under the sacrifice and then began to dance and call on the name of Baal to answer with fire. After quite a bit of time went by and Baal had still not answered, they begin to cut themselves with knives and throw themselves on the altar. And despite all of these huge gyrations, there still was no fire from the supposed "god of lightening."

Then came Elijah's turn. He repaired the old altar to the one, true God and placed twelve stones as a foundation, one each for each of the tribes of Israel. He placed the wood and the sacrifice upon it. But then comes the unique trait: as everyone watched, Elijah dug a trench around the sacrifice and then got someone to take four barrels of water and pour it over the sacrifice, completely covering the sacrifice with water until it was drenched. And then before this altar, Elijah prayed a simple, sixty-three word prayer for God to respond as He had promised. After he had finished praying, the scripture says:

Fire fell from heaven, consumed the sacrifice, and removed all doubt that the one, true God of the scriptures was the only God!

Since this is one of the most singular events of Elijah's life, then for John the Baptist to be "in the spirit and power of Elijah" he would certainly have to preach the same thing. And he did! John the Baptist's first message was "repent!" In other words, "get and rebuild an altar in your life to the one, true God!" But John the Baptist didn't stop with just commanding an altar of repentance in people's lives, but also commanded that they should be baptized by complete immersion in water to get them selves ready for the coming of the Messiah. And the grand finale of every one of John's message was that he was not the Messiah, but when the Messiah comes, they would know Him because:

It would be the sign of the true Messiah, the true God, that He would baptize the living sacrifices of His people with Holy Ghost fire! And so He did! On the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Ghost fell and the disciples received the promise with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, the scriptures record that it sat upon them "like as of fire!" The message of Elijah lived on!

If we are to be in the spirit and power of Elijah, then we must be convinced of, preach, and experience a Mt. Carmel experience for ourselves! On the day of Pentecost, Peter commanded the people to:

He said: Repent! In other words, build an altar to God in your life, and die out to your sinful ways by asking God to forgive you and change your life so that you can turn from such a lifestyle! When you repent at an altar and place your life on it, you prepare the altar to put God to the test and put yourself in position to find out that God is real and is the only, true God! But don't stop with repentance! You've got to completely cover that sacrifice, your flesh, in water just like Elijah by being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And then when you do, if God is real and you yield yourself to Him, then He will answer with fire from heaven and baptize you with the Holy Ghost! How many of you know that He is real!? How many of you have been baptized with fire from heaven!? We can never change our message of repentance, water baptism in Jesus' name, and the infilling of the Holy Ghost, because to be like Elijah, we must believe that the real God answers with fire when we put Him to the test of Mt. Carmel! Go ahead and step out and try it: you'll find that God will do exactly what He said that He would do!

In his famous prayer on Mt. Carmel, Elijah said:

To be "in the spirit and power of Elijah," you must be able to one day look back at your life after you've come to God and say "I have done all these things at thy word." The Word of God must become the governing force in every area of our day to day lives!

In doing that and living that and becoming that, sometimes you -- just like Elijah -- will have to believe in doing things God's way even when it goes against conventional logic. God's ways are higher than our ways and sometimes to follow scripture seems to go against the best and most sound human thinking.

We find this trait in Elijah's life when he approached a poor widow lady in the town of Zarephath (1 Kings 17). The woman was broke and all she had left besides her house was enough oil and meal to make two little cakes for her and her son to eat and then they would starve. God instructed Elijah to ask for her to fix the two little cakes for him. That goes against human logic! It goes against a normal humanitarian nature! It goes against everything to the way that we think; God was asking the unthinkable! But the woman obeyed. Maybe it was her desperate situation. Maybe it was that she had already given up. Or maybe she had faith in the man of God to obey God's word preached through him even if she didn't understand! Whatever the reason, she gave God, through the man of God, all that she had, and when he had eaten, Elijah prophesied to her that until the famine was over, every time that she went back to the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil, she would find it filled! And sure enough, when she went back to check, the containers that she had just emptied in obeying God's Word she found filled again! And God did a miraculous blessing because Elijah and the woman obeyed God's Word even if it went against conventional logic.

John the Baptist had the same spirit. His preaching made him a popular man among the people, and it grew and grew for six months until Jesus came along and then John pointed people to Jesus and His ministry, even sending two of his most faithful disciples to be the first disciples of Jesus (Andrew and John). To human logic it didn't make sense, but it was God's will! Human logic says to "toot your own horn" and "push yourself ahead into success." but God's will said "be a servant" and magnify Jesus! I don't know what edicts from the scripture or the teachings of your pastor that you think are stupid or crazy, but I'm going to tell you something that is certain: God needs people with spirit and power of Elijah today in His kingdom, and to be that, you are going to have to learn to obey God's Word and the man of God even if it crosses conventional wisdom! God moves in mysterious ways and He responds to faithfulness and obedience more than anything else! If you will obey, you will see the miraculous hand of God!

The next trait is closely tied to this principle. To be like in the spirit of Elijah:

God does the supernatural and the miracles, don't get me wrong and Elijah saw the dead raised and such, but your relationship with God cannot be based upon miracles, signs, and wonders but instead of listening to the soft voice of God to your heart. Elijah was in a cave in 1 Kings 19 and was desperately needing a Word from God and encouragement. The scripture says that the Lord brought supernatural storms upon the mountain. First, a strong wind blew but God was not in the wind. And then an earthquake mightily shook the mount to it's foundation, but God didn't speak in the earthquake. Thirdly, God brought a great fire upon the mountain but God did not speak from the fire as He had done Moses. Instead the scripture says:

And in that still small voice, God began to minister and talk to Elijah and take some attitudes and issues of the heart and change them. All of the miracles and the supernatural are not the point of serving God, but rather a relationship with Him! And we must be sensitive enough to allow God to speak to our hearts and bind up the hurts and take some attitudes that hinder us, out of our lives.

John the Baptist did no miracles and yet Jesus Christ called him the "greatest prophet that ever lived" up to that time. Why? The answer is found in John's answer when someone asked him if he was jealous that Jesus' ministry was now taking off and his was closing. John said:

John knew that he had to listen less to himself and more to God and was willing to learn to be sensitive to Jesus Christ being exalted and Lord over every part of his life! I've known people that were seeking miracles and signs and liked to dance around and shout and run the aisles and that's all good in it's proper place, but yet I've known people who desired all of those things and never learned to be sensitive to the Spirit of the Lord and to allow Him to speak softly to their heart and remove things that were not like Him and to remove attitudes that were contrary to His Word and purpose. To be in the spirit and power of Elijah, we must allow God to speak to us and to minister to our hurts and our needs and remove the masks and the walls and get real with Him! We need Him! And this thing is about a relationship with Him!

And the last trait of someone who is "in the spirit and power of Elijah" is that:

In our text in James we find the brother of Jesus instructing the Early Church on the proper way to pray and he uses Elijah as an example. He is sure to tell us that Elijah was "a man subject to like passions as we are." There are some of us that have a hard time praying and sometimes don't feel like praying. Elijah had some of the same feelings and yet, he learned the value and necessity of prayer. To be in the spirit of Elijah, you must pray for it was a primary characteristic of the prophet. But James gives us HOW Elijah prayed.

According to these verses, Elijah prayed:

Persistently -- he prayed the effective fervent prayer. He didn't quit after a little while had gone by and he didn't get the answer that He wanted. He didn't pray in his head and quietly to himself but boldly approached God with his petition, believing that God was going to answer him.

Unselfishly -- he prayed kingdom prayers even if them being answered caused him inconvenience. To prove the validity of God as the "Lord of the sky and heavens" that it was not Baal, Elijah prayed that it would not rain for three years. That prayer caused him hardship in finding food along with everybody else, but God took care of him because Elijah prayed unselfishly.

How much of your prayers is "I want" and not "your will be done?" We should bring our requests before God, but we should also make pray "kingdom prayers" as in "thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The prayers of someone in the spirit of Elijah are unselfish in nature.

Earnestly -- literally means to "pray with worship." Elijah never forgot that he was created to worship God. Everything that he did was performed with worship in mind. When he prayed, he did not just ask for things or use God as a "911" call, but he worshipped God and praised Him! God responds to true worship and you will find that God does answer your prayers when they are prayed earnestly, with heart and with worship! God is not interested in lip service but a sincere petition from the lips of someone who loves Him, He will not turn away from.

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Another trait, that we don't have time to get into is that Elijah poured himself into somebody else's walk with God. He found an Elisha whom he taught and trained to love and have faith in God just as he had had. The fact that Andrew and John started as disciples of John the Baptist indicated that he did the same as Elijah. It is a characteristic of people with the "spirit of Elijah" that they spend time and effort in the spiritual well-being of other people.

But let's finish this message by asking ourselves a question: what happens when someone does respond by being "in the spirit and power of Elijah?" There is a benefit to every command of God if obeyed so let's identify them here. When you do these things and begin to walk in the spirit and power of Elijah then this is what will happen:

Elijah found out that there were more people serving Jehovah God than he thought!

The devil can do miracles and will false prophets, but the true, miraculous hand of God is a natural by product of a true relationship with Him!

If God has to send birds to feed you, you will not go hungry if you are living according to the will of God! The scripture is true:

Later on, when Jezebel sent soldiers to arrest Elijah to have him killed, God caused fire again from heaven to consume and devour those who would hurt him! And God did it twice and would have done it a third time except the third commander got smart and begged for mercy. Many Bible scholars believe that the mountain that Elijah was sitting upon was again Mt. Carmel! When you stand upon the truths of this Apostolic doctrine, God will fight against those who fight against you!

Elijah and John the Baptist never went through a down time or a wilderness without leaving refreshed and more on fire for God! God will make sure that what wears ordinary "Christians" down, actually sparks a revival in your life!

When Elijah prayed, it rained! God will answer the prayers of people who are in the spirit of Elijah. And, the rain of the Holy Ghost will fall freely in such a person's life!

This is perhaps the greatest benefit! Elijah didn't have to worry about death because God sent a fiery chariot of horses to carry him away to heaven! If you will live filled with God's Spirit and according to His Word then you have a promise that even if you physically die in this life that it's not permanent, because one day Jesus Christ is coming back for His church and we shall be carried away to meet Him and we shall be given a glorified body that will live forever! Elijah's not the only one whose going to fly through the air to the destination of heaven, but those who are "in the spirit and power of Elijah" in this generation will match him! Praise God! Jesus is coming back for a bride that "hath made herself ready!"

I don't know where you're at today, but hear what the Spirit is saying to the church: God needs someone in the spirit and power of Elijah in this end time! If you need to experience the Holy Ghost fire in a Mt. Carmel experience to prove to you that God is real, then step out in faith and repent and get baptized today! Or maybe you need to make some changes in the way that you pray. Or maybe you need to be sensitive to the still, small voice of God and allow Him to remove some attitudes and feelings that are not like Him! Whatever you need to do, come build an altar in your life this morning and let's ask God to change us and put Holy Ghost boldness upon us. Until, like John the Baptist, we can go forth into this world "in the spirit and power of Elijah."