This sermon draws inspiration from various biblical stories like the three Hebrew children who stood firm in their faith, Elijah on Mount Carmel demonstrating the need for divine intervention, and Elisha's unwavering trust in God's protection. It emphasizes the importance of complete reliance on God, even in the face of challenges, and the necessity of seeking His intervention rather than relying on human efforts.

Then one thinks of the three Hebrew children. This time it was Nebuchadnezzar, and he went down to look on and said, something strange here, I threw in three and I see four. They could have said, look, who's here? We've got company. They wouldn't bow, and they wouldn't bend, and they wouldn't burn. When they came out, there wasn't even the smell of the smoke on them. I like that. I'm glad the Holy Spirit put that in. You know the trouble with some people who suffer a little for the Lord, you never hear the last of it. All the rest of their lives you get the smell of the smoke every time. If you've been in a fiery furnace, ask the Lord to take away the smell of the smoke, because we've got enough troubles of our own, and it'll help us a great deal if you'll do that. I was with Dr. Stanley in First Church, Atlanta, and he was telling me about some of his trials and tribulations of some time ago. A lady of the church gave him a picture of Daniel in the lion's den, Daniel looking up, and the lions all back of him. She said, Doctor, every time you look at this picture, I want you to remember that Daniel is not looking at the lions. It's a good thing to remember. Then there was Elijah and Carmel. They'd had a dry spell. It hadn't rained on the just or the unjust. There had to be a confrontation on earth before there could be an intervention from heaven. And that's true of revival any time. There has to be a showdown before there are any showers of blessing. He repaired the altar, prepared the sacrifice, for it's useless to expect the fire from heaven when the altar is not repaired and the sacrifice is not prepared. But he did something extra, and I've never heard anybody preach about this part of it, poured 12 barrels of water all over that sacrifice. Now, don't forget the water was a very scarce commodity in that country then. It had a drought for a long, long time, and yet poured out 12 barrels of it. He wanted to make it perfectly clear to those people there are no tricks about this thing, and nothing's going to happen unless God moves on to the scene. Today we try to help the Lord out a little. We build a little fire so God won't have so much trouble. We try to warm up the altar and help God out, but Elijah drenched it. And I tell people all over the country it's the drenched altar that God sets on fire. When you've done your dead-level best, and you've done all the repairing and all the preparing, count your riches gained but lost and pour contempt on all your pride, and say, Dear Lord, we've done all we know. Now you will still have to intervene before anything happens. All is vain unless the spirit of the Holy One comes down. It takes that. We've had our organizational meetings. We've had our study courses. We've had our committees, a group of the unfit appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary. But nothing is going to happen unless God moves in. So if I, sometimes I think I'd like to recommend one more committee. I hate to do it. But one more committee, the water-pouring committee. After we've done all the rest, let's still realize that it was when Elijah drenched the altar, and then asked God to set fire to that soggy sacrifice, that the miracle happened. If it hadn't, Elijah would have been the laughingstock of the whole country. When we are prepared to be cold fools for Christ's sake, and he would have been something to joke about if nothing had taken place, the fire falls. We're playing it safe today. Dr. Hill, that great black preacher from Los Angeles, tells about this in another way, all his own, you know. He said, you've got to get into something before God moves in. Hebrew children had to get in the fiery furnace. Daniel had to get in the lion's den. You've got to get into a situation that requires divine intervention. God is not going to come down and meet with us in the basement of some church, sipping a little hot chocolate and discussing the minutes of the last meeting. Something's got to happen. When he does come down, the doubting multitude will have to say to the Lord, he is God, look who's here. It takes that. Then there was Elisha, the prophet of God. What a man to have around. He was equal in any situation. He could supply the city with good drink and water, recover lost axe heads, make poison food fit to eat, put a poor widower in the oil business at a profit. Heal lepers and raise the dead. He was also a one-man built-in CIA, a central intelligence agency. Because every time the king of Syria started to make a move over, Elisha had a hotline to heaven and heard about it first. The king said, we've got to get that preacher. So he sent the militia after him. Maybe we need preachers today to send the army after. So here they came. And the servant of Elisha came out and looked. Lo and behold, there were soldiers to the right of him, soldiers to the left of him. Here a soldier, there a soldier, everywhere a soldier. Ran in and said, they've got us this time. We're surrounded. Elisha said, there'd be more that'd be with us than they'd be with them. I think that old servant must have said, well, I don't see them. Where are they? Oh, I see soldiers. And then Elisha said, Lord, open his eyes so he can see. When he opened his eyes, he looked up. He saw angels to the right of him and angels to the left of him. Here an angel, there an angel, everywhere an angel. Because the angel of the Lord was encamping around the mountain here to deliver. You see, it makes a difference when you're looking up instead of when you're looking down. If you're going to what you read in the paper and see on television, may the Lord help you. Get your sights up. Your vision's bad. Maybe you need your glasses cleaned. You can't be optimistic with a misty optic. Get your eyes cleared up. And let the Lord open your eyes and you will see things you didn't even know were there. The outlook's bad. I grant you that. But the outlook's good, as good as ever. I've quit saying civilization, going to the dogs, out of respect for dogs. I wouldn't want to insult the canine kingdom with any such remark as that. A preacher friend of mine said some time ago, he said, you know, every time I hear Walter Cronkite saying, that's the way it is, I like to say, no, Walter, that's not the way it is. That's just the way it looks. And that's right. Sometimes I walk an awful lot, I like to quote as I walk the words of James Russell, that matchless poem of his, careless seems the great avenger. Sometimes it looks like God's mighty slew coming down here to break in and help us out. You remember our Lord's story, the way to avenge me, vindicate me, set things straight, Lord. My adversary is pressing hard upon my life. Careless seems the great avenger, history's pages but record. One death grappling the darkness, twixt old systems and the word. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. That's the way it looks. But that's not the way it is. But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown standeth God, within the shadows keeping watch above his own. That's the way it is. God's on the job. He's around. And all the way through the Bible we just keep running into this sort of thing, Peter and John. The lame man, the gate of the temple, they said, look on us, not what great preachers we are, but we represent somebody, you can't see him, but he's here, look who's here. There was a lameness, there was a look, there was a lift, and there was a leap, all in that story. And Peter said, now, his name, through faith in his name, will make a difference. You may have come in here limping, but you'll go out leaping. And that's exactly what happened. No wonder Charles Wesley wrote that verse that I can't find in any Baptist hymnal. I don't know why. I know he wrote a lot of verses about that, but I wish they'd left this one in.