For several years I’ve been reading stories of the miraculous things happening in the persecuted Church: stories of Christ appearing to Muslims in dreams and visions; stories of Christians protected by angels; stories of lions appearing to rescue Christians about to be beheaded. Many more such stories have been told. Are they believable? I believe that God is working in miraculous ways.

I have communicated with a handful of Christians native to persecuted areas. Many have now vanished from social media and email. I know this about them: they felt abandoned by the Church in the West, if not by God; they felt alone.

It is in our nature to sometimes feel alone in the struggle of righteousness, even here in the US. It is both easy and self-serving to believe we are the only ones standing against the post-Christian version of Baal worship. In truth, the Church in the West may be fooling itself into believing we are a part of the Church at all. Our faith paddles in comparison to the faith of Christians in Africa.

We in America may be a type of Church of Pergamum while the Church in Africa and the Middle East is the Church at Smyrna (see Revelation 2:8-17).

Yet, know matter how often or to what degree any of us feel abandoned, we never stand alone. God always has a remnant. Just as Elijah knew nothing of his 7000 contemporaries who had not bowed down to Baal, Christians worldwide are refusing to bow to the false gods of this world. We are not alone, even when we stand unto death.

Christ said, “For I am with you always, even into the end of the earth.” He is with us, and there is always a remnant.

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There comes a time in every Christian’s life when God allows us to reap what we’ve sown. Specifically, immature Christians often see the wages of sin, especially sin from which we have not repented. I have.

I found myself flat on my back, having sunk lower than I could have ever imagined. I had nowhere else to turn… No one else to turn to, but to God.

Actually, that has happened a few times in my life. Call me a slow learner. Each low, after that first one, was more of a plateau. As a result, each crisis led to an ever closer relationship with God.

That’s our topic today: the life crisis that leads to surrender.

While the experiences that have led me to a deeper walk with Christ are certainly unique, the crisis experience itself is not. Most people endure at least two such experiences in their spiritual journey.

The first such crisis is the one through which God worked to lead us to salvation. Since I can rightfully assume that most of my readers and listeners are Christian, I won’t expound upon it.

The second crisis is the one that God uses to sanctify us. It is at that point that He fills us with His Holy spirit. It is that point that we realize that God is cleaning house, revealing to us or wicked hearts and asking us to repent of sins big and small. He sweeps those sins out the door and fills us with more of His love.

The great holiness preacher of the early 20th century, Buddy Robinson, described sanctification as a boiling pot in which sin rises to the top, and is skimmed away by God. At one point, he thought that if God didn’t turn down the fire, there would be nothing left to skim.

It is not a fair analogy to compare the journey of an Old Testament prophet to a Christian journey, but the parallel is so close, that I cannot resist it.

We read 1 Kings 19 where Elijah is exhausted. He’s flat on his back and tells God that he’s ready to die. He hit bottom. Here’s the lesson:

It wasn’t until Elijah told God that he was ready to die that God gave him the strength to live.

There is the parallel. Take a look at Ephesians 2. I urge you to read the entire chapter. Even will focus on verses 4 and 5 from the NIV.

…because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved.

This – described in Ephesians 2 – is the crisis experience that leads to salvation.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV – For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

I encourage you to read Roman’s chapters 6-8. This describes the crisis experience and a before and after picture of sanctification. Here are some key verses: Romans 6:11-14 NIV

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

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An old story circulates throughout Southeast Kansas about a family that lived on the frontier in the days immediately after the Civil War. The family, named Bender, were infamous. They lived on a major trail that connected the Frontier to Indian Territory and took in boarders, some of which they robbed and murdered. When exposed, they slipped out of Kansas and onto Indian lands without ever getting caught. Their misdeeds were so notorious that they were mentioned in a novel of Rose Wilder Lane.

Father Paul Ponziglione, a Jesuit missionary, once encountered that family at their inn. The Benders were hospitable, offered food and a place to lay his head at a reasonable price. The weather was turning, and a storm threatened from the horizon. Thunder rolled across the sky, sounding like a barrel rolling off a moving wagon. The night promised to be frightful. At first, he agreed, for home was a day’s journey away. As the storm brewed, a voice whispered in his heart: “Leave this place. It is not safe.”

Embarrassed, the priest made his apologies and steered his covered wagon with its team of oxen up the road. An hour or so later, he made his way off the road and into a secluded grove, out of sight of the Bender family. Later, when recounting this story for a historian, he testified that he knew the voice he heard was the voice of God.

It is not always easy to hear the voice of God, especially in the midst of a storm, but it is possible if we train our hearts to listen. We read of a storm in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4. Jesus and His disciples were on the sea of Galilee when a storm blew in. Some of the disciples were professional fishermen, from a long line of fishermen, and they were scared for their lives. The shallow-drafted, flat-bottom boat was nearly swamped. They cried out to Jesus, who was sleeping near the stern. With the words, “Peace, be still,” he calmed the stormy sea.

God does not always calm the storm when we cry out. Sometimes, he wishes to speak to us through the storm, as he did to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-13. God’s voice is often heard in the midst of a storm. In my own life, I often hear him best when I have taken refuge from a storm, holed-up in a shelter of my own making, on a sea with fishermen who are in uncharted waters, or flat on my back, with nowhere else to turn but to the heavens. I cry out in desperation to God, “Please, Father, calm the storm before I am drowned.”

In the midst of every storm, without fail I hear my Savior speaking, “Peace be still.” In. Every. Single. Storm. I hear His precious voice.

Sometimes He says them to the storm. Other times, He says them to me.

“Steve, peace… Be still,” he says. Upon hearing His words, I no longer worry about the storm that rages around me.

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Sheltered in the Arms of God

So let the storms rage high
The dark clouds rise
They don’t worry me
For I’m sheltered safe within the arms of God

He walks with me
And naught of earth shall harm me
For I’m sheltered in the arms of God

-Jimmie Davis and Dottie Rambo

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The same thing might be said about Elija. When we first meet him in 1 Kings 17:1, he seems to have boldly taken it upon himself to confront Ahab, the king of Israel. Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, worshipped Baal instead of the true God. Not only that, they compelled the entire nation to worship the false god. Nowhere does the Bible say that God asked Elijah to confront Ahab that first time (although, one might safely assume that). 

To protect Elijah from the king after that confrontation, God leads Elijah to the desert, sits him down by a stream, and sends ravens to feed him. Before long, though, the stream dries up because of a drought that God had sent on Israel. 

To save Elijah, God tells him to seek out a particular widow and ask her for food. The widow, though, has no food, and tells Elijah she was preparing her last meal from what little flour and oil that remained. It was just enough to feed her and her son. “After that is gone,” she said, “I will give up and die.”

“Do not fear,” Elijah tells her. “Bake me some bread, and feed me. I promise, there will be enough for you and your son. Furthermore, I promise that your supply of flour and oil will not run out until God sends rain.”

While Elijah comforts the widow and her son, he must have mused about the way God works. He may have spent weeks in the desert, placing his faith in God, and wondering if and when his life would get better. When the stream dried up, he undoubtedly prayed desperately. 

“Don’t be afraid, Elijah.” God had reassured him. “For through your tragic situation, I am working. A widow will feed you, and in turn, I will feed her and her son.” 

We don’t really know that God said that to Elijah, but that is the exact situation. 

Have you ever stopped to consider how God is using you, even in the lowest, most traffic circumstances in your life? You may never know how you have touched others for the good. Don’t be afraid, for God is working through you, even when you feel like you are at your lowest. 

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