Well, I thought maybe the Lord was speaking to us about a baptism, but I’m not the sprinkling sort, so it’s hard to know what to do.
I’ve got some comfort in the fact that M. A. was considering speaking on the plagues of Egypt, but at the last moment turned to Isaiah.
I’m Dana Congdon. I come from Long Island, up in New York. Most people do not know where that is. Long Island is 125 miles long. When I go out on the island, I go as far as somebody from Richmond does to go up to Baltimore. But nobody knows it, because there is that little island of Manhattan that everybody knows.
When I say I am from Long Island, they think I am from New York City. Actually, Manhattan Island is being dwarfed now by Bedloe’s Island. Imagine that little place, Bedloe’s—that is where the Statue of Liberty is. Right now, I am so glad I am here. Pilgrims are making their way up to worship the statue, and store owners around the bay are charging people one hundred dollars apiece to get up on their roofs and watch the activity. All kinds of interesting things are happening up that way. Aren’t you glad we are here?
Oh, I do love the United States and the freedom we have. I am so thankful that we could gather together for this Richmond conference. As with last night, so this morning we have a particular challenge ahead of us: not to be distracted.
It is raining on me, and on some of you. But Stephen tells a story about what it was like down on Hardoon Road, or wherever it was they used to meet back in Shanghai. They used to sit outside on little stools about this high, with no backs on them, in the winter and in the summer. Ain’t we got it good?
So, by comparison, we have it pretty easy here, folks. We have air conditioning and a few drops of rain. Let us try to keep our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus during this time.
I would like for you to turn again to Romans 15:4, as our starting thought Scripture.
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,
that through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures
we might have hope.
There are many people who start the race. As a matter of fact, I am a bit disturbed, I must say, with what I consider to be the caricaturing of this spiritual reality called being born again.
Today, there are a number of people who think they are born again because of their emotional excitement. There is a large group of people being caught up in an excitement, but when you talk to them, you find no spiritual resonance. Words—but the reality is lacking behind.
But then there are those who have come to know the Lord, and the question becomes: Will we persevere? Will we go on and be faithful to the Lord throughout our lives?
We are called to run with endurance the race that is set before us. For that persevering heart that desires to be faithful, we find this precious commodity of hope—one of the great three things given to us by our Lord. This fuel for our heart, hope, is ignited by the encouragement of Scripture.
This word encouragement in my Bible may be comfort in your Bible. In any case, it is that Greek word paraklesis, the word we get “Paraclete” from. It is as if the Word of God comes alongside. That is what it literally means in Greek: “called alongside.”
We are walking on this upward way; we are fighting our battle; and alongside us comes the Scripture to encourage us, to comfort us, to pick us up, to fuel our fire.
In this vein, I find prophecies to be a comfort to us. Paul says that prophecy is to edify us, to warn us, and to come alongside—to encourage and comfort us.
We have four prophecies we are looking at in these few days. Yesterday, we took the book of Habakkuk and saw how God, through His speaking to Habakkuk, comforted him and gave him hope to press on in difficult times.
There is no particular challenge, I suppose, in pressing on in easy times. The Lord places a hedge about all of us to a certain degree. Have you experienced that in your life? I know that as a young Christian, I certainly, like Job, had a hedge around me. The Lord poured His grace out upon me, and I did not even realize the warfare that was going on. I just went down the road. Ignorance is bliss.
But if we are to persevere, sooner or later we come into hard times. We begin to find out what is really in our souls and lives, and how much we really need the Lord.
When I was first a Christian, I used to read these words of comfort because it was a novelty. I had never read the Bible before, and I was saved at twenty years old. It was exciting to read. But now, twenty-two years later—if you have added it up, you see, forty-two—I read the Scripture not because of novelty, or even excitement, but because I know I need this if I am going to keep walking through tough times.
This morning, specifically, I want to talk about one of the very real problems in the body of Christ and among us as the people of God. It is what I will call, and I hope you understand what I mean by it, the problem of veteran burnout.
When the veteran soldier comes to the end of himself; when a Christian who has been faithful for a while runs out of steam. Of course, I am thinking of Elijah. That is who we will look at this morning.
When I was a young child—three years old—my father was a psychiatrist. He took up the profession immediately after I was born. When I was a young three-year-old boy, we moved to a state hospital. We actually lived there at the state hospital. I was not behind the bars.
We lived in a state hospital on Long Island, where my father was a psychiatrist. I lived there until I was ten, and I got to know many of the patients. Many had work release; we had patients in our home, people who served us, you might say—people who mowed the lawn and cared for the yard.
I was amazed, as I talked to these patients and asked simple questions, that most of the men were World War II veterans who never quite got it back together again after they had seen their friends blown away in foxholes, or had come home with physical injuries themselves.
One man especially was such a good man. We called him Gene-Gene because his name was Gene, and we never knew his last name. He always had Lifesavers—the assorted ones. When I got real old, like nine or so, I asked my father, “Why is Gene-Gene here? He seems so normal. He has normal relationships with people.”
My dad basically said, “Well, he was a veteran of the war, and he just cannot face society. He wants to stay here. They have even tried to release him, but he just will not go.”
Casualties—veterans. Of course, today we have much in our minds about Vietnam veterans, so many of them with injuries, drug abuse, and histories in their backgrounds where they still are not quite together.
Brothers and sisters, am I being real when I say that in the body of Christ we find this same sort of experience? Is it not incredible when you see veterans who used to be in leadership—men who used to preach the Word, sisters who used to lead little Bible-study groups in their homes—who seemed spiritually alive, with nothing more to give?
Up on the shelf, put aside, sitting there quietly, passing the days, waiting to go home to be with the Lord. Veterans who come to the end of themselves—veteran burnout, whatever you want to call it.
I would like you to turn to 1 Kings 19. We will look at Elijah. You know the story. You really should get hold of Lance’s tape on Elijah. He shared on this a few years ago in the conference here. It was very good ministry on the life of Elijah, very precious to all of us who were here at the time.
I would like to look at Elijah, not at the time he prayed and the rains came, but immediately after that miracle.
Most of you know the story of Elijah and his great moments on Mount Carmel. He had his day. Standing there, he called on the Lord to reveal Himself to the children of Israel as God over Israel. The Lord came down with fire and consumed the sacrifice. The people cried out, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!” Then Elijah said, “Go and kill those prophets of Baal,” and they killed four hundred and fifty of them.
What a day.
Then Elijah told Ahab, “It is going to rain.” It had not rained for three and a half years. Ahab, in faith, broke out the wine and cheese and had a party. Elijah went off to pray, and sure enough, the clouds rolled in and it rained. Then he ran down to Jezreel. What a day! We would like to have one day like that in our lives, huh? Just give me one good old fireball from heaven that will set up your reputation for the rest of your life.
Let us read a few verses from 1 Kings 19. Look at the day after. You know, the day after some great victory is when the devil is going to get you if you do not watch out.
Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done,
and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.
Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying,
So let the gods do to me, and more also,
if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.And he was afraid, and arose, and went for his life,
and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah,
and left his servant there.But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness,
and came and sat down under a juniper tree:
and he requested for himself that he might die; and said,
It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life;
for I am not better than my fathers.And he lay down and slept under a juniper tree:
and, behold, an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.And he looked, and, behold, there was at his head a cake baken on the coals,
and a cruse of water. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.And the angel of the Lord came again the second time,
and touched him, and said, Arise and eat;
because the journey is too great for thee.And he arose, and did eat and drink,
and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights
unto Horeb the mount of God.—1 Kings 19:1-8
Father, I pray right now, precious Shepherd that You are, Who knows our hearts and everything about us, that You would recover Your veterans. That You would recuperate, fully restore, revivify, rejuvenate, and bring back to life these precious vessels for the deposit of Christ, who have been cast aside by various circumstances.
I pray specifically, not only for people who may be in this room this day, but especially for those who come to our minds whom we know back home—those who are not here, obviously burned out. O Lord, we pray that Your restoring Spirit would move into their lives, even as You did into Elijah.
Help us now to understand the simple point of today’s message by Your Holy Spirit. Burn the love of Jesus as our Shepherd into our hearts. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Everybody has an Achilles’ heel, I guess. Elijah’s was Jezebel. He could take Ahab, but when he got a telegram saying, “Elijah the has-been. Stop. You are history. Stop. Ahab may have let you get away with murdering the prophets, but so may the gods do to me, and more, if I do not make your life like one of these prophets by tomorrow. Signed, Miss Rambo”—that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
A man or woman of God can only take so much. One more thing does not have to be something specific to break their back. Elijah did a very human thing. He found the next flight out on Donkey Express and took off from Jezreel down to Beersheba with his servant.
Then he left his servant and went one more day, all alone, into the wilderness. Suicidal, martyrdom-minded, he sat down under a juniper tree, breathed his last, and said, “Okay, Lord, that’s it. Just take me home. I am no better than my fathers.” He laid down to be taken home.
It is a sign of our lack of a shepherd’s heart—and of God’s great Shepherd’s heart—that God took Elijah seriously. I suppose I shared with you yesterday that I do not care too much when I hear people whimpering. If I had been standing there, I might have said, “Elijah, O ye of little faith! Come on. Stop this silliness and get up and serve God.”
But God is the great psychiatrist. He is the great Shepherd of our souls, and God knew Elijah was serious.
This was not just some suicidal whim. This was a man of God at the end of himself. Before we write this off as some silly moment where he simply lost control, let us realize that God took him seriously.
God did not say, “O ye of little faith.” God did not say, “Fear not; arise.” God let him sleep.
I suppose some veterans need to sleep. They are just straight-out exhausted. God seems to know that.
Most of us have this feeling that once we engage ourselves in service of any kind, we ought to keep going nonstop, right to the end. But I can say in my own life that I have felt God pull me away at times unto Himself.
In any case, Elijah rested and was awakened by this miraculous angel who fed him on two occasions and gave him the strength, as Lance says, to go the wrong way. That is an amazing understanding of God. I do not know if God let him go the wrong way, but God gave him strength and let him go his own way, knowing the way he would choose.
Is it not wonderful that our Lord, even when we are faithless, is still faithful?
If we are faithless, He abideth faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.
—2 Timothy 2:13
It confuses us sometimes as God’s children, does it not? We get unfaithful. We run, stop serving, freak out, and burn out—and God still blesses us. Some folks make the mistake of thinking, “Well, I must be on the right track.” No. God is faithful even when we are faithless. He cannot deny Himself. This is His child, and God cares for Elijah.
Elijah went on to Horeb, the mountain of God. Let us pick up in 1 Kings 19:9.
And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there;
and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said unto him,
What doest thou here, Elijah?And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts;
for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant,
thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword;
and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.
And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind
rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord;
but the Lord was not in the wind:
and after the wind an earthquake;
but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
and after the earthquake a fire;
but the Lord was not in the fire:
and after the fire a still small voice.—1 Kings 19:9-12
Elijah runs to Mount Horeb, the holy mountain of God. He runs and hides in a cave, and then God comes to him. God asks him the same question twice: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
For the sake of emphasis, I would like to emphasize a different word each time. The first time, perhaps the Lord said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Why did Elijah run to the mountain of God? I do not know what you think. Lance has shared about Elijah’s love of the mountains, rough terrain, and the sort of environment in which he grew up. But there was obviously something Elijah felt he needed from God.
I would call it a deep sense of nostalgia—a desire to meet again with the living God. He went to the mountain of God. This is where Moses met God. This is where it all happened: the Ten Commandments, the thunder, the smoke. Elijah said, “I have got to get back to my roots, back to the source, back to the mountain.”
He runs into the cave—perhaps the place where Moses hid in the cleft of the rock. He sees the little inscription on the wall: “Moses loves Zipporah.” This is it—the spot. This is where God moved in Moses’ life. This is where God brought the birth of a nation in Israel. This is a holy place of God. “I have got to go back. I have got to go back.”
Elijah wanted to have a great experience with God. As the old phrase goes among the saints, he wanted his battery recharged. He wanted to meet God.
So God said, “Okay, Elijah, come on out here. I’ll give you an experience, all right.” Elijah came outside, and God let him have it. The wind beat all over the place; rocks were breaking; God passed by. Then an earthquake came and shook everything up. Then a fire came.
But none of it satisfied Elijah’s heart. Then, of course, came the still, small voice. That did it.
There is much that could be said or interpreted from these things, but I think these experiences are similar to those many veterans go through. This problem of nostalgia and recapturing the past occurs to somebody who has been walking the veteran way for a while.
I will use myself as an illustration. I was part of one of the biggest happenings of all time. I do not know if you have ever heard of Woodstock, but have you ever been to Jesus ’83, Creation ’85, or Fishnet ’84? These great happenings. But I was part of one of the greatest happenings: Charismania in the early seventies.
When the charismatic experience was being poured out on people, I was caught in that wonderful rain. What an experience it was. People who did not even know what was happening had the Spirit of God coming upon them. The Spirit of God was moving in people’s lives.
I saw churches that were so dead—denominational, dry, and dusty churches—suddenly coming alive. Things happened. Churches moved. Revival was seen. Then this whole charismatic sweep came.
I found my guitar, blew off the dust, and started to sing and worship God. I had never done that before—not really in my spirit. I flowed with it. It was so precious to get together with the saints, to be in an assembly with hundreds of people, singing and praying and singing and praying. Oh, it was a great experience. We were so hungry.
God raised up teachers in the body of Christ, and we soaked it in and took notes. I had such a wonderful experience.
Now it is 1986. When things get tough, one can say, “Ah, for Charismania in the seventies. I remember it well—the juice, the flowing, the Spirit, the openness, the freedom, the reviving, the renewing. Maybe I ought to sneak back. Maybe this group is a bogus group anyway.”
So I occasionally go and visit the church of Charismania. And you know something? They are playing music even louder than before. They have more instruments now. They have made it more professional. Not just some little hillbillies up there with three guitars; they have orchestras now. The singers are better, everybody knows the songs, and the singing is louder.
But I cannot enjoy it the way I used to, because when I come back, I see so much flesh. I see so many folks trying to work themselves up, but it is not coming from the Lord. I see people whose flesh in life does not add up to the great spiritual giants they feel they are.
It is not the same thing.
Now, folks, that is my experience. What is yours? You may not have been part of Charismania in the seventies. Maybe you were part of a group that really knew how to sing the hymns with all their hearts, and you have never been able to recapture that feeling. Maybe you have been in times of great and intense teaching, where it was as if the vision of the Lord was right before us and the smoke was filling the temple, and you have not been able to recapture that again.
Maybe you have been in sharing groups where everything was emotionally charged and huggy-huggy. It was love, small, and sloppy. It was wonderful. You try to find that again, but it is not to be had. It is just not there.
I want to say something because I have talked about Charismania. The charismatic movement helped recover worship in much of the church today. It freed many people who did not even know whether they were born again. It touched the lives of thousands, and it has touched all of us.
I thank God that His Spirit was poured out upon me. I got off the treadmill of the kind of life I had been living and began to understand that there is a flow and a moving of the Spirit. I need to learn to flow with it. I praise God for that.
I have no feelings of guilt or shame at all, but I also know I can never go back to immaturity again. It just does not work for me. It may be a way in for others, but I have gotten too far to put up with stuff when I can see that there is so much mixture.
I am not trying to say I am on some higher plane. I am trying to say that we have got to be honest in our conscience before God. You cannot go back to immaturity.
Some people get discouraged and say, “Maybe I should go back to my old church. Remember how easy things were there?” What we are really saying half the time is, “I want to go back to a place where I am not responsible anymore, where the pressure is off me.”
You know what the problem is with our fellowship if we have been traveling with the Lord a while? The Lord’s authority is upon us. We cannot get away with the foolishness of the past. We do not like that restraint. We want to get back out where it is free.
The charismatic movement has gone two ways. On one hand, some groups moved into chaotic anarchy. They are moving in the flesh; it is chaos, and there is no leadership. On the other hand, as a reaction, some moved into authoritarianism—a leadership mentality so strong and human that it holds everybody down and puts people into bondage.
You cannot go either way, and you cannot go back. All you can do is follow the Lord and be honest.
Another point we can draw from this is a veteran problem. We serve. We want to lead. We want to serve God’s people. We get involved in outward momentum, as Elijah was on Mount Carmel, calling down great fire. But sometimes we do not take seriously the need for that still, small voice within.
I will put it simply: If you lose your closet, you will end up in a cave.
Lose your closet; find the cave.
Sometimes we get so busy as veterans that we do not quietly come before the Lord, read the Word, meditate, pray, and hold time for that. We have meetings; we all gather together; we all pray. But what about my own personal feeding? What about that still, small voice that leads and guides me?
Sometimes it is mysteriously missing. I am so involved with outward things—with ministry, serving, and helping people. Any leader has the problem of getting caught up in helping situations that never stop needing help. A leader will soon become a janitor in the church of God instead of having a prophetic vision to move forward.
That prophetic vision comes out of the still, small voice—from seeing in the Word of God, from vision being renewed, opened, and refined. But when we are busy doing this and doing that, it has a way of bringing our lives down and bringing us to the end of ourselves.
Elijah did not feel a touch from God until that still, small voice. Then he covered his face.
The Lord came to Elijah again. Let us make the emphasis a little different this time: “Elijah, what are you doing here?”
Elijah had been out of service for about forty days by this time, hiding in the cave. When the question came, he had his answer down: “O Lord, I have been very zealous. The people have forsaken the covenant, torn down the altars, killed the prophets, and I am the only one left. They are after me.”
The Lord took him seriously. I think this is a subtle but real problem among veterans. I call it objective misanthropy.
Misanthropy, in case you do not know, means a dislike of people. I say objective because they have good grounds.
For the veteran, there comes a place where they are mature enough and really know the saints. I do not mean only leaders in the assembly. I am talking about brothers and sisters who have been walking before the Lord for a while, wanting to do His will and serve Him.
This burnout does not apply only to a certain group or gender. It has to do with anybody who has come before the Lord long enough to learn something about themselves. Then they look around, and after a while it is pretty easy to size people up.
When you size up the saints, it can look pretty pitiful. Some honest veterans say, “I would rather be with the world’s people than the Lord’s people. At least you know where they are at.”
Have you ever been sheep-bit? They act like sheep, but they have some canines in there. It looks wolfish to me. They draw near to you and take a nip out of you.
I have been sheep-bit so many times I have been inoculated. You get to the place where, as a veteran, the only way you can hold them off is to hold them at arm’s length.
Veterans know what people are like. You wonder why leaders sometimes have the stiff arm toward everybody. They resist being candid and open with you.
I have a problem because I do not know whether I am too talkative or just tend to be candid sometimes. I tell people what I really think. Why, has that gotten me into trouble?
I do not know whether it is right or wrong, or whether it is a hazard of serving God, but sometimes I cannot tell people what I really think. Perhaps there is restraint there that the Lord is trying to teach me.
But I also feel that something is wrong in the body of Christ when, after you have been a veteran for a while, you end up stiff-arming people and resisting real fellowship—resisting opening yourself up.
The toughest people to really open up are often the brothers in leadership. There are blessed exceptions, but boy, that is a tough thing: to really open up to the saints—the ones who bit me before, talked behind my back, moaned and groaned, and caused me such grief.
We have a way of semi-opening, to a certain point. But is that the depth of Christian life? Is that the way we are supposed to live—at arm’s length from one another?
We develop a complicated system of knowing how far we should keep our distance. That is the way you feel about the saints somehow.
Elijah’s objective misanthropy was a problem God took very seriously. Do you know why Elijah wanted to end his life? Elijah was a veteran. He had served God, and he had burned all his bridges. He had no escape, no way out. There was nothing left to live for.
When all you have is God and serving God’s people, and you observe the fickleness of the people of God, it can become unbearable. I suppose this thing was sealed for Elijah on Mount Carmel. He saw the mighty act of God, but he also saw the absolute fickleness and undependability of God’s people. They could change just like that.
He thought, “This is useless. Why be a prophet? Why be a mouth? There is nothing left. I have burned all my bridges.”
When you are not a veteran, you think, “Well, I will go back into the world, make money, have a great time, recreate myself. I will go shopping.” But the problem with a real veteran who has a heart for God, like this blessed man Elijah, is that he has nowhere else to go.
He knew a job was not enough. He knew it was not found in diving into family, making money, or going shopping. He had been with the Lord too long. There was nothing else to do.
When the last reason for serving seems to fall away before your eyes, and you see that the people of God do not change and do not care, you feel as if you are speaking into the wind.
It was not merely that Elijah was afraid Jezebel would take his life. What is the use of giving up your life if nobody is standing with you?
We are forever part of this great paradox: we are to serve God, but we are among God’s people. We are not called to be vertical loners. Elijah may have been a loner by temperament, but he was made alone by his circumstances.
How can a vertical loner go on? How can somebody live with God and themselves alone, without encouragement, ministry, or relationship with the people of God? What is there to live for?
I know precious brothers who love the Lord with all their hearts and are at the end of themselves because there is nothing else to live for. They know the rest is dust.
The problem of burnout in our society used to be a problem men met at middle age, in their late forties or early fifties. Sociologically, now burnout comes by forty. Men by forty can be confused about their goals and what life is worth living for, dropping out of their jobs left and right, asking, “What is the sense?”
In spiritual things, veterans can come to the place where they say, “What is the sense? What is the use?”
We have to remember 1 John 2. John says you cannot say you love God and hate your brother at the same time. That can roll off our backs, but hating your brother has different levels.
Little children simply do not like somebody. Young men can use the Word of God on people. They preach at people. When you have been a Christian for a year, you think you are perfect and look around at all the other saints. You start shooting them down.
How many ministers have you heard who just club the sheep? They are mad. You can tell they are mad. They are yelling at people, getting back at them, using the Word of God.
But how does a father hate? He just leaves people alone.
Veterans can hate their brothers in a very subtle way. They just leave them alone, remain aloof, do not fellowship, and do not open up. Maybe that belongs in the same category. What do you think?
There are three things wrong with misanthropy as a whole, certainly with Elijah’s stance, and certainly with ours if we find ourselves cynical.
You know the saints so well that, as soon as Sister So-and-So starts to pray, you know exactly what she is going to pray. You know the song somebody else is going to pick. You know the prophecy somebody is going to give. You have it all together. You have figured out everybody. You have good grounds not to like them anymore.
The first thing wrong with it is that it sells the Lord short. God said:
Yet I will leave Me seven thousand in Israel,
all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal,
and every mouth which hath not kissed him.
—1 Kings 19:18
Elijah’s observation was correct. The children of Israel had broken the covenant, torn down the altars, and tried to kill the prophets. But his conclusion was wrong: “I alone am left.”
Do not ever sell the Lord short. You may sit in a company of people who seem to be going nowhere. Maybe God wants to bury them; I do not know. But do not sell them short. Do not say, “These people are no good. These are the wrong people. We could have a hot fellowship if we just had the right people.”
The grass is always greener in the other fellow’s fellowship.
The second thing wrong with it is that we come to the end of ourselves and our soul gets short. I like that phrase. It is used in Numbers 21.
When the children of Israel reached a certain point in their wilderness wanderings, the Lord turned them back again toward Egypt. When that happened, their soul got short. They said, “We hate this food. There is no water.” That was when God sent the serpents among them.
When your soul gets short, you start reacting. You start reacting in the flesh. The problem with veterans when they come to this misanthropy is that they see people in the flesh. They no longer see their brothers and sisters in Christ. They no longer see the potential in them to encourage and draw out.
They have observed everybody and make fleshly opinions—opinions filled with fleshly wisdom. “This person is this way. This person is ugly.” It is based on temperament and what you see in the flesh, but you are not seeing them in Christ.
Is it not amazing that the Lord, in His omniscience, never got cynical with His disciples? He knew them backward and forward. He knew what was in man. Did you ever see Him become a misanthrope?
Is it not amazing how He trusted people and was patient with people? He knew how they would respond with shallowness, but He never came to the end of Himself and started reacting in His flesh.
The third reason this misanthropy is wrong is that it is a sign that a person has lost their orientation.
Usually, when somebody develops misanthropy, they fall into the false position of saying, “It is us and them,” without realizing that they are part of the people.
“They are no good. They do this all the time. They bother me.” But if we could see out of God’s window, we would see that we are part of the problem. Veterans are part of the people in the same bunch.
You cannot say “we” and “they.” As soon as we set up a division between leaders and followers, or any such thing, we set up a false category. It is not right. You are just a sinner saved by grace, like everybody else.
Could we realize together that the devil is afoot to destroy the veteran? Maybe you have somebody in mind. I want to tell you: it gives the enemy great glee to see somebody fall by the wayside, give up, come to the end of themselves, fall into depression, and have darkness cover them for years.
Have you ever seen the tragedy of somebody caught in a group that was almost cultic? Perhaps they were Christians, but they were so tight and under such authoritarian bondage. Then they get out, burned out, with nothing to live for. They do not know how to be simple, how to be family, or how to be alive. Everything has to be intense. Everything is given to them from above. They have no sense of free will.
It is such a terrible thing to see somebody come out of a group like that and see the tragedy of their busted, burned-out lives.
Do not think of this merely as a problem that happens to people over there. Look closely. There are many veterans among us, even in our companies, even serving God, who are in neutral and cruising. They are not in gear. They are going through motions, but they are burned out. They have their opinions and feel quite hopeless.
Brothers and sisters, there is no way the church will come to maturity unless veterans are recovered. They have a deposit of Christ. They have seen and come to know things, and yet it is as if they are shelved.
Maybe that is part of the reason Paul says we need to pray for those in leadership.
I can feel it when people are praying for me. I am not some kind of mystic who thinks I can feel everything. But I am thankful to come and speak at a conference like this because there is no brick wall before me. I can speak from my heart and share with you. I know there is prayer going on. Thank God for that.
But how often do we do that for the plain, ordinary guy back home? These men may put in fifty hours a week at their jobs and then lead the people of God. Who is praying and buoying them up, praying that they are recovered? “O God, do not let them become misanthropes. O God, do not let us abuse Your servants.”
We need fellowship that finds grace to show double honor, spiritually, to those who lead and have found a way through.
The Lord is such a precious Shepherd. He knew what Elijah needed. Elijah complained of all these things, and God’s basic response was quite therapeutic. God said, “Go.”
What do you do, veteran, when you come to the end of yourself? You go.
What do you do when you can no longer find the grace to obey? You obey.
The strange, paradoxical, and wonderful thing is that if you feel restless and need rest—if you have to get away from ceaseless pressure—the only way to really get away is to obey and enter into rest.
There may need to be adjustments in your life as to how you do things and what your priorities are. But the only way is to go in obedience. If you pull back, you will not get rest; you get clean.
The Lord said, “I want you to go down. I want you to anoint Hazael. I want you to anoint Jehu. I want you to find Elisha and anoint him as your successor.”
God knew Elijah needed a friend.
There are veterans who do not have a Christian friend anymore. They are real loners. They need to be reincorporated. Find a friend—somebody with whom you can open your life and pray together.
Do you have somebody with whom you can really open up and share your life? I will say this even beyond your husband or wife: do you have somebody?
Do you have a friend with whom you can share your problems, doubts, fears, and misanthropic observations? Someone who will not sheep-bite you? You share those things, they share the same, and you throw them all in the garbage and pray for one another’s restoration.
Sometimes you have to let the stuff out. Just chuck it in the garbage can.
Elijah was not the expressive kind, perhaps. He did not say, “Oh, Elisha, so glad to have you along.” But Elijah was glad that Elisha came along. He walked silently, but Elisha knew: “It is good to be with my brother. It is good to be walking along again.”
Elijah had some more good years. He was not through. The Shepherd came down and restored him, gave him a friend, and gave him a call. “You have still got a call. You have still got service. It is not all over.”
Implied in that was, “Elijah, I have given you a call and things to do. You will not be killed. Old Jezebel may say, ‘I’m going to get you,’ but you follow Me, obey Me, and trust Me. I will take you up when I am ready. Do not lie down on Me. I will lift you up, and I want you to go.”
I hope that is the way all of us go—that God lifts us up in a chariot, rather than finding us laid down under juniper trees. We have a juniper tree around every fellowship represented here today. You probably have some people lying down around yours.
I would like you, in your heart, to spend a minute or two before the Lord and focus on some people you know who need to be restored. Maybe you are sitting right next to the person.
Silently pray: “God, restore these precious ones. They are so precious.” I cannot understand when I meet somebody with such a history in God and it is all blown up, except to know that it could happen to anyone unless the precious cross of Jesus can bring greatness and the Spirit can renew us. We are cooked without Him.
Lord, we pray. Do not let them quit. Send them ravens’ food if they are so cut off and alone. Touch their souls with a still, small voice and reaffirm the calling You have within their lives. You still have purpose for them.
Lead them to friends with whom they can open up, be human beings in Christ, find the true and living way, and not have to carry some leadership facade.
We pray for those precious sisters who have been eaten up by other sisters, competitively and jealously bitten away. We pray for those people whose hearts desired to give it all, and they gave it all, and they do not know what to do now.
We pray for those who burned all their bridges. They have nowhere else to go, and the world tastes like dust in their mouths. O Lord, we need one another. We are not going to make this if we are all just lying down under the juniper tree.
I pray very specifically that You would revive the veterans. Revive those who, even when they speak before the assembly, merely speak words—it is not alive. Quicken us.
For the veterans who hold the people of God around them at arm’s length, O Lord, break their arms. Give them real relationship, the kind that helps them grow.
Where their observations have been twisted by the flesh, by the end of themselves, and by a false position, O God, make them as one of us as we all go together.
Do something at the grassroots level among all of us, brothers and sisters. Help us pray for the veterans, pray for the leaders, pray for those with responsibilities, and pray for those serving You.
Remove from us that wolfish nature that likes to bite and chew those people who stand out. Give us real love for one another—recovering kind of love.
You are the Shepherd of our souls. We are thankful that Elijah went out in such a testimony of victory that his name is mentioned among the great ones, somebody faithful who stood as a prophet of God even in tough times.
As our brother shared yesterday, it is not a question of how great we are, but whether we are faithful. Help us to be faithful in our service to You.
Where else can we go? You alone have the words that we need.
Lord, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.