This sermon discusses the contrast between the impact of 120 men filled with the Holy Spirit in the early church and the lack of noticeable impact from a gathering of 4,000 preachers in modern times. It delves into the story of Ahab's wickedness in 1 Kings 16-18, highlighting the obedience and boldness of the prophet Elijah who confronted the evil king and demonstrated unwavering faith in God's provision, even through miraculous means like being fed by ravens.

They don't weep, they don't grieve. And since we've failed so magnificently in the last 25 years, you wonder why we don't have a minister's conference and find out where we got off the track. 4,000 preachers met in Amsterdam about three months ago. A doctor friend of mine and his wife went a month after and she said, oh, we were going around Germany and other places. I wanted to get to Amsterdam to feel the power of God in the city. And when she got there, she didn't feel a thing. Isn't it amazing that 120 men from the upper room could turn a city upside down, then turn a nation upside down, and your 4,000 preachers gathered together for about 10 days, costing 5 million dollars, and nobody could even tell they'd been in town. Isn't it illogical? Now, I may have many faults, but I'm not afraid of anybody. And I wonder why a preacher says, every Sunday morning, I have 4,000 students in my school year, all filled with the Holy Ghost. And nobody knows they're in town. But they knew when 120 were in town, filled with the Holy Ghost. So here's a question you might work out. What's the difference between the baptism of the Spirit in Acts 2 and the baptism of the Spirit today? There's an awful discrepancy. You may have a headache thinking about it, maybe you'll have a heartache before you get through the whole thing. But obviously, the church of the New Testament and the church today are two very, very different things. And I hope you'll make some great discoveries while you're in school here. Okay, let's look at this quickly. I'll say that a few times and not go so quickly, I suppose, but anyhow. Here we are in 1 Kings 17. No, end of 16. Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. Now, let's remember that 58 years before this, there had been a dividing of the kingdom. Right before Elijah comes on the stage, there had been seven kings and every king did more evil than the king before him until finally, the final king does more evil than all the previous kings before him. And that includes Jeroboam, who you may remember once made some gods out of gold and said to the people of Israel, these are your gods, O Israel. I think the thing that amazes me is how short our memories are for all of us. How quickly we forget the mercies of God, how quickly we forget the judgments of God. But you see, this is comparable to the day in which we live. Let me read it now, verse 31. It came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam and the sins of Nebat. And he did a lot of evil things, Jeroboam. He took Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of the Zidonians and went and served Baal and worshipped him. You see what he does? He inaugurates worship to strange heathen gods. He puts an altar for Baal in the house of Baal and he built Samaria and he made a grove. And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel and to anger, he did more to stir the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that now, all the aggregate iniquity of the kings before him, this one king exceeded all their wickedness and he made God very, very angry. And he rebuilt Jericho, which you remember had fallen down in the days of Joshua. And he set the foundation stones in the blood of his son. And as we would say, everything in the garden was lovely, everything was rolling along perfectly, like putting the lights out one by one, the nation's morality and spirituality had been pushed away, the preachers had gone hiding underground. And it looks as though this wicked king, it would be more correct to say he was a very weak king, his wife Jezebel was very wicked. And when everything in the garden was lovely, suddenly up comes a little man, a rugged, rugged man by the name of Elijah. I'm looking here for a description of him. In the 2nd book of Kings and the 1st chapter in verse 8, this is the Elijah who had come up against a man who was going to do something evil. And it says in verse 8 of 2nd Kings chapter 1, they answered, he was a hairy man, girt with a leather girdle about his loins. And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. Today our prophets have brooks, brothers, suits on and have their hair, what do you call it, blow-dried and head and nose, and they have big rings on their fingers and showmanship. And here's a little man that makes the whole nation to tremble. Go back to chapter 17, Elijah the Tishbite is of the inhabitants of Gilead. Now there were two Gileads, one of them was a rugged mountainous place and my guess is that he lived there and he was as rugged as the mountains. Rough-looking, hairy man. But the word of the Lord came unto him in verse 2 saying, Get thee hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself. Now look, mark that phrase there, hide thyself. 17th chapter, verse 3. Now look at 18th chapter and verse 1, Go show thyself. You know, the secret of his life is not difficult to discover. The secret of his life is this, he was obedient. When God said, Hide thyself, he didn't say, Well Lord, how long am I going for and what's the apartment like? I mean, does it have hot and cold water and is there a grocery store nearby? The Lord says, You go, I've commanded the ravens to feed thee there. Now I don't like that, I wish it was another bird, but it was a raven anyhow. But you see in the Hebrew, the word raven and Arab are interchangeable. So the smart scholars today say, Well, it wasn't a bird that flew with his breakfast every morning, it was an Arab. Well, have it that way if you like, that's as big a miracle as anything. Did you ever know an Arab feed a Jew? But I don't think an Arab would come flying through the air. But he brought him bread and flesh in the morning, bread and flesh. Maybe that's a suggestion, you only need to eat twice a day. It's quite natural and yet supernatural for a raven to... A raven is a carnivorous bird. What was the first bird that Noah put out of the ark? So everywhere he went he had a choice, he could eat a bit of an elephant, he had a smorgasbord. He could have a bit of an elephant now, a bit of a human being the next meal, a bit of somebody else, all the carcasses floating around from everybody who'd been destroyed in the world. But when the dove went out, what did he do?