THERE’S A GREAT DAY COMING
Isaiah 12
I believe we are approaching the day that the Bible speaks about so vividly.
From watching the news and listening to people who have studied prophesy for years and years, it is not hard to understand that we are standing on the threshold of eternity.
Some of you in here today are not affected by that statement at all, while others know and feel exactly what I am talking about.
Life has caught so many people up in its pleasure and excitement that they don’t realize that life is over, as we know it, much sooner than we plan.
Many will work ever so hard to try and have wealth, only to find out that in later years they have to spend it trying to regain the health they lost to do it.
What a shame to let all the good life pass by and never be able to enjoy it with family and friends.
God, help us to realize that we need to focus on your plan for our lives and not what we want that will only please our fleshly body.
Let our Spirits be renewed and our Soul be refreshed as we smell the springtime air of rapture and eternity with God, His Son, Spirit and family and friends.
Cause us to get a grip on ourselves and realize that time is coming to an end and there is a great day coming.
The old hym says:
There’s a great day coming
When the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left
There’s a bright day coming
But its brightness shall only come to them that love the Lord
There’s a sad day coming
When the sinner shall hear his doom, “depart, I know you not”
Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready for the judgment day?
There have been hundreds of great days recorded all throughout the Word of God, but the day that is swiftly approaching will be the greatest of them all.
Every person here today has many great days stored in the memory bank of your mind, and if you are a child of the King, the great day coming will be the greatest of them all.
Unfortunately, and it doesn’t have to be this way, but some here today may see that day as the worst day of their existence that will erase all the good times forever.
Time is speeding by faster than the speed of sound, Jesus is coming soon and time as we know it will be no more.
Let’s think back to some great days we have read about in the Bible.
Of course, we could talk about creation, the fact that God made us in His image, the end of the law concerning all the sacrifices that we could not keep, Israel’s freedom from bondage, the parting of the Red Sea, crossing Jordan into the land of Canaan, Goliath’s defeat by the shepherd boy David, and on and on throughout the Old Testament and the New. Time would not permit us to consider them all this morning.
But I read and thought about two or three of these days this past week that are recorded in 1st Kings.
In the 16th chapter and the 33rd verse, the Bible says: “And A’hab made a grove; and A’hab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.”
On over in the 18th chapter and verse 1, we find these words: “And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto A’hab; and I will send rain upon the earth.
Now stop for a moment and remember that there is a great day coming!
2nd Timothy 3 and verse 1 says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.”
Come on Church, I may not be the smartest man in the world, but I believe that all of us can surely agree that the world relations are in the worst shape we have ever known.
Mark chapter 13 is all over the place and all around us!
It seems that no person is altogether safe on this planet any longer and this seems to be part of the picture that is painted for us on the pages of God’s Holy Word.
So all this trouble points to the great day that is coming.
Acts 2: 17-21 gives us another insight on that great day as we read these words, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and sings in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Portions of these last two Bible references are going on as we are gathered here this morning and the rest is quickly approaching.
Back to our scripture in 1st Kings. In the third year of the draught the Lord came to Elijah.
At that same hour A’hab and O-ba-di’ah were going throughout all the land to the fountains and brooks trying to find grass to save their horses and mules from dying.
A’hab ran across Elijah and asked him this question, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” Elijah answered him, “I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Ba’al-am.”
Church, it has never failed that when man began to forsake God’s commandments, The Most High God stepped in and proved His power.
Not only has mankind pushed the commandments to the back of the shelf in our time, they have fought to have them removed from all the public places where they need to be seen the most.
Listen to His Word in Galatians 6: 7: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Turn away from God and His commandments and reap.
Take them down and throw them away and reap.
Live like the demons in hell, but you are going to reap.
I say no to the above, but turn to God and His commandments and reap the good things of this life and the life that is to come in that great day.
Elijah says to A’hab that they are going to gather on mount Car’mel all Israel, the 450 prophets of Ba’al and the 400 prophets of the groves that eat at Jez’e-bel’s table.
He said when we get up there we are going to let the real God prove Himself and that’s who we are going to follow.
He said I am the only prophet of God here, but Ba’al’s prophets are four hundred and fifty.
Let them bring two bullocks. Let them choose one and cut it in pieces and lay it on wood and put no fire under it.
Then I want them to call upon the name of their gods and I will call on the name of the Lord, and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.
And all the people agreed to it.
You remember how they put the bullock on the alter and cried to Ba’al from morning till noon and received no answer.
The Bible says that they leaped up on the alter they had made. And Elijah began to mock them and tell them to cry out to their god.
He said maybe he’s talking or pursuing or maybe he’s on a journey or he might even be asleep and you may need to wake him. ( And then I can almost hear him laugh real big.)
They begin to cry louder and cut themselves with knives and lancets until the blood gushed out upon them.
All this went on until evening and still no word from their god.
Then Elijah said, come over here and he took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob of which the Lord said Israel shall be thy name: and he built an alter in the name of the Lord.
I don’t care how many alters you throw together--------If they are not in the name of the one true God-------nothing is going to happen around them.
He made a large trench around the alter. Then he stacked wood and put the bullock, that was cut in pieces, on it.
Then he had them pour four barrels of water on the sacrifice and the wood. And then he said do it again and again the third time.
And water ran all around the alter, dripping and running everywhere, and then he said fill up the trench.
Elijah then prayed in 1st Kings 18: 36&37, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned there heart back again.”
Your Bible says that the fire of the lord fell and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench-----WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE!
And when the people saw it they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God.”
Let me tell you something today-------THE LORD, HE IS GOD; THE LORD HE IS GOD!
They took the prophets of Ba’al and slew them and said to A’hab, “get up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.”
That was already a great day, but it wasn’t over.
On the top of Car’mel Elijah cast himself down to the ground and put his face between his knees and begin to pray.
He told his servant to go look towards the sea, but the servant saw nothing.
He kept praying and telling him to look and on the seventh time he came back and said, “ I see a little cloud about the size of a mans hand.”
In so many words he then told the servant to go tell A’hab to get up and get ready to get out of that place, because there was fixing to be too much water falling from the sky to escape from off that mountain.
I am telling you that was a great day, but there is a greater coming.
This world is in a mess. The gods of the world, and their followers, are having a pic-nic, but there are some men and women of The One True God who are beginning to fall down and put their heads between their knees and pray.
People are running back and forth saying nothing is happening, but can I tell you that pretty soon the servants of the Living God are going to see a cloud. (Hallelujah)
In that cloud there is not going to be any rain, but upon that cloud will stand the One that reigns for evermore. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
There’s a blessed time that’s coming, coming soon,
It may be evening, morning, or at noon,
The wedding of the bride, united with the groom,
We shall see the King when he comes.
Are you ready should the Savior call today?
Would Jesus say well done or go away?
My home is for the pure, the vile can never stay,
We shall see the King when he comes.
Oh, my brother, are you ready for the call?
To crown your Savior King and Lord of all?
The kingdoms of this world shall soon before Him fall,
We shall see the King when he comes.
Before the cloud of rain showed up, God performed miracles.
Before we see the cloud in the eastern sky, I believe He will do the same, but millions more.
Folks will be saved, healed, filled with the Holy Ghost and even raised from the dead.
Maybe this is your miracle day------Come to God for whatever you need.
Because that great day is almost here. (Prayer) “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Morton, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Amen.”
