Ep 173: When Plans Fall Apart And God Still Shows Up

"Elijah’s fire-from-heaven victory proved God’s power, yet fear and burnout followed fast. How does God’s “still small voice” sustain us when spiritual highs collapse into exhaustion and uncertainty?"

We start with the fire on Mount Carmel and end with the quiet voice that finds Elijah after the crash. We talk prayer, leadership pressure, and what to do when a huge win is followed by fear, disappointment, and a sudden change of plans.
• praying for the entire Plays on Word family through the night
• keeping prayer lists with God and trusting Him to remember every name
• a Lakewood, New Jersey story about feeling out of place and choosing peace
• sharing the upcoming play in Clayton, North Carolina for a marriage conference
• honoring old churches and the long prayers of saints who went before us
• learning to stay calm when plans fall apart and a door suddenly closes
• walking through 1 Kings 18 and Elijah’s showdown with the prophets of Baal
• seeing how Elijah goes from calling down fire to fearing Jezebel’s threat
• holding on to God’s plan and listening for the still small voice 

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Transcript

Cold Open Fire From Yahweh

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Lord, you know you're now listening to play is the best. Verse 38. Then the fire of Yahweh fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and leaked up the water that was in the trench. Yo! And when verse 39, when all the people saw it, they fell on their face. No damn! I bet they fell on their faces. When then all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, youngest.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater. That's me as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

Prayer Lists And A Lakewood Moment

Upcoming Play And Legacy Prayers

When Plans Break Trust God

Elijah Challenges The False Prophets

From Big Win To Deep Fear

Still Small Voice And Closing

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Diving in, yo. Amen. Well, welcome to all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio. Maybe I need to new to do a uh uh uh an intro. Oh, speaking of intros, thank you very much, Josh Taylor and Katie Kenny, for that spectacular intro. My wife, Katie Kenny, is up in the northeast corridor of the country, the United States, right now, visiting her mama. And technology has made it possible for us to create this broadcast while separated. I'm at our Southern command in Nof Kakalaki. Yeah. So anyway, I'm praying all you guys are blessed. I was actually praying for all of you last night. I don't say that for accolades of what a spiritual person I am. It's a fact, though. I just want to let you know, I was actually praying for the entire plays on Word family. People that listen to the podcast that are that have been on it, part of it, seen the plays, come to the plays. Uh it's a it's a pretty large group. But we have a big God who actually can know everybody's name and know exactly who is on that list. Don't be afraid to have lists with God. Don't be afraid to uh you know, create lists that you would never be able to keep. I have a running list of Jewish people with the Lord that I'm praying that he brings them to salvation. I used to live in the town right next door to Lakewood, New Jersey, which was a very, I think it's the largest Hasidic community outside of Jerusalem. It might even be bigger than Jerusalem. I don't know. A lot of Jewish folks, and I just I said, Lord, I'm gonna ask you to keep a running tally of every Jewish person that I see with the top hat and all that, you know, the curly Q hair, and uh, you know, their outfits are pretty pretty dope. They're sweet. Their outfits are cool. Uh one time it was a it was on Thanksgiving. Man, this is going back quite a while, maybe 15, 18, 17 years ago. It was Thanksgiving, and we didn't have we needed something. And all the stores were closed. It was like right after that three o'clock, four o'clock cutoff when the stores closed. And I was like, man, I gotta, I needed to get something. I forget what it was, but man, I went to this, I said, let me go to Lakewood. I rolled into Lakewood and I went to this like Jewish market, man. They had the Hebrew script uh next to the English. And oh man, I walked in and it was as if like the music stopped, everything stopped. They all looked at me, like, what are you doing here? I was like, uh, hey, it was weird. I I felt so uncomfortable. I didn't even I said, you know what, man, I'm just gonna go somewhere else. I'm getting out of here. I got out of Dodge, man. It was like a it was like a bad cowboy movie, you know, when the when the good guy walks in to the bar, and uh you know somebody's playing the piano, people are drinking, carrying on, the good guy walks in, and everything stops. Piano player stops, everybody stops, and they all look. The bartender, everybody, they look at the dude who just walked through into the bar. That's exactly what happened to me in Lakewood. Yeah. And uh, you know, I was still a little hard-headed back then, and I I was tempted to just push it and just gets go up to the you know, clerk and buy something. But I said I said, you know what, man, it's Thanksgiving. I don't want to cause any trouble. Let me get out of here, man. So I did. That's exactly what I did. And uh anyway, don't be afraid to keep a list with the Lord. You know, you can create a list, create a um uh, you know, you could even uh say, Lord, every face, every face that I see on TV, you know, I'm adding them to the list of who I pray over. You can exponentially increase your sphere of influence that way. You can't remember them all, but the Lord can. And uh I'm a pretty firm believer in that. So yeah, have some lists, man. I have lists of uh all my pastors, my buddies, and guys that I get some guys I don't even know are on that list, some pastors I don't even know. Uh but they're on that list. I've said, Lord, please add them to the list of pastors that I pray over pray for. Um so I just want to encourage you. And if you do have a list of pastors, can you add me to your list? Please, please add a brother to your list. One thing I wanted to do today, we do have a play coming up. Not this weekend, the following weekend. We're gonna be in Clayton, North Carolina at my dear brother Kevin Edwards uh fellowship that he's the senior pastor of in Clayton there at uh Calvary Chapel, Clayton. And we will be bringing our Pete presentation there for their uh marriage conference they're doing. We're real excited about that. I'm stoked, I'm telling you, man. They have a brand new sanctuary. And hey, I listen, I'm not mad at old sanctuaries either. So if you have an old sanctuary, I'm don't be like, hey, that guy's hating on old sanctuaries. I just we just last a week, two weeks ago, I don't even remember. A little while ago, we were just at some really old churches, like three of them were all old, really old. And uh we enjoyed that. I think I I spoke about it. And uh yeah, I think I spoke about it on the last podcast. We it was it was interesting, you know, that just seeing the that you know, it's is one of the the churches, I think all of them, they might have all, except for Lambertville, they all had a cemetery connected. And I often, when I see that, I think about all the saints that went before that are buried in that cemetery that have prayed over the church. And then if when I go to the church to minister, to minister the word of God, uh, or do a play, which is ministering the word of God, or to preach, or to lead worship, uh, I often think about all the saints that and their prayers that went that were, you know, 100, 150, some churches 200 years ago. They couldn't even imagine uh what we're doing now, the technology and stuff we have now, but just the fact that God is so faithful, He's still answering their He's still answering their prayers. How amazing is that that God is still answering their prayers, and and no prayer is too small or too uh what is the word I'm looking for? Uh uh unimportant. There have been prayers that I prayed almost in in just a passing type fashion. I'll give you an example. Um we were the church that I pastor, we were meeting at Indian Trail Meeting House in Southport, which is downtown, way up by the water there. And um they had to renovate the building, so they let us know they we weren't gonna be able to rent the room from January from December to May. And so we had to find a new location. And I was like, oh, okay. And I felt that it was from God. I'm like, you know what? This is from God. This is from God. So I made my plan, you know. I said, Lord, I'm just praying. And I prayed, and the Lord, I believe the Lord put on my heart the movie theater. I was like, all right, okay, cool. Hey, we we reached out to the movie theater. The movie theater was like, hey, we've been praying. Well, not in the they didn't say they were praying. They said we've been hoping for a church to to want to come rent here. And it was like, man, I was like, this is awesome. Okay, all right, Lord's opening doors, I'll walk through it. And um, we were to go and we were gonna rent out one of the theaters. There's four theaters at this this uh location, and we settled on theater number two. That looked good for us. They had new chairs, and uh we were like, okay. And as the date drew closer, uh we were finalizing, we got a contract from them and everything. And then then the owner kind of just turned to a ghost, man. He disappeared. The manager, this young girl, she was like, Oh, the the owner, he he's got some other uh uh other questions. He I just felt her putting the brakes on everything. It was very, very strange. I'm like, I'm ready to move forward here, you know, I'm ready to come load up some some of my stuff, you know. And I'm thinking, man, I get uh uh I have a church congregation here that's gonna be expecting to be meeting here. We've told people we're gonna be meeting here in a few weeks, you know, and the the owner just turned into a complete ghost. I don't know what was going on, but I started to sense, okay, well, there's one person that's not surprised at this, so I don't need to stress over it, but there's somebody that's not surprised, and that's the Lord. He's not surprised, he knows what's going on. There's something in this for me. I'm not happy with this. This is this has the potential to stress me out because I'm like, man, what where are we gonna meet? And so in just a passing fashion, I um we drove past, we were driving on our way to our Wednesday fellowship, and I remember looking over at the moose lodge as we passed it. And I said, Man, that would be really man, that would be that'd be a cool place to meet. And but we had already looked into that and heard that they don't rent out, you know, that they're not renting out to anybody. And uh so I was like, man, this is not good. And but just in passing, we were on our way to the our Wednesday morning fellowship we do, which and you have to drive past his lodge. And um we as as I I remember distinctly driving by it and just looking over it, I said, Wow, Lord, is there any there it'll be awesome if you could get us in in there. I mean, but they they don't they're not renting out to anybody that like on a regular basis. We could rent it for one day, but not a regular basis. Um, but Lord, if if it's your will, that could you put that on the list? Something along those lines. It was just a quick, you know, reach out to the Lord type thing there. I can't even articulate it. And you know what? Uh uh, it it was coming up on a week or a week or two. We were supposed to be meeting at the movie theater. Now some people are biting their nails. Like, have you heard from the owner yet? Have you heard from the owner? People are coming up to me. Have you heard anything? I'm like, no, but just stay calm. The Lord's gonna provide for us, he's gonna take care of us. Uh, this is in the Lord's hands. And I felt I pr felt really confident about that. I was ready to pass the buck anyway. I mean, that's what I do. I pass the buck. Hey, listen, the buck never got to my desk. That was a Bill Clinton impersonation for you kids from the 90s or yeah, past the 90s. You guys, the buck, the buck never got to my desk. The Lord's the one who's in charge here. Now, Bill never said anything like that, but but but uh the idea is listen, man, when you are submitting to God, hey man, okay, I'm submitting to you, Lord. Okay, and you're gonna run into disappointments sometimes and things that do not go according to plan. One of those things I wanted to share with you today is a story of Elijah, which is an amazing story in 1 Kings chapter 18. Man, it's like the Super Bowl here, and it really is like the Super Bowl because there's um it's it's between Elijah and all the false religion fake prophets. I'm gonna read from verse 20 of 1 Kings. So Ahab sent all the peoples of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. Just gotta imagine this, man. The music is going dun dun. He gathered all the prophets together at Mount Carmel, and Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions? He's breaking it down. He's like, There's there's one God, and you guys are worshiping false gods. So if let me continue with Elijah, if the Lord is God, or he says, If Yahweh is God, follow him, but if Baal is, then follow him. And the people didn't answer him a word, they said nothing. Because they see this is the confrontation here. Finally, this is this is like uh Ali Frasier or the thriller manila, whatever you know. This is it, this is the confrontation, this is the one everybody's been waiting on. And then it says verse 22, then Elijah said to the people, I, even I only am left a prophet of Yahweh. But Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let two bowls be given to us, and let them choose one bowl for themselves and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood and put it, put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bowl and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. Verse 24. And you call upon the name of your God, lowercase g. And I will call upon the name of the Lord Yahweh. And the God who answers by fire, he is God. Now you got to keep in mind, uh in in a lot of areas there at that time, Baal was thought to be um the god of fi of uh controlling fire. Also, Baal worship goes back to Nimrod. Okay, Nimrod, Ashtareth was Nimrod's wife, Simaramus, and Tammuz, their their supposed son, that supposedly died and was killed by some animal, but brought back to life. And when he came back to life, he was you know the embodiment of um Nimrod, the false religious system, and Ba'a worship was dogging the people of Israel for many years at this point, and so he says, Um, the one who answers by fire, he is God. And all the people now the people stand, and all the people answered, it is well spoken. Basically, amen. Right, all right, okay, right on, bro. We can get with that. Verse 25. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose for yourself one bowl, and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your he's being gracious to these guys. Call upon the name of your God and put no fire on it. Then they took a bowl that was given them, and they prepared it, and they called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, Oh, Baal, answer us. You have to imagine this situation, man. Everybody's watching this. Like you have to remember, no doubt, the prophets of Baal were talking trash for for um many, many years, you know, talking nonsense. And finally, here's the confrontation. Yeah. And uh at and but there was no voice, there was no one who answered, and they limped around, limped around the altar that they had made. And at noon, this is where this is where it really gets funny. At noon, Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry loud, for he's a god. Either he's musing or he's relieving himself, meaning he's maybe he's going to the bathroom. Yeah. Or he's on a journey, or perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened. All these things are absolutely hilarious. Verse 28, and they cried, they cried aloud, and then they and they cut themselves after their custom with the sword and with lances. Now they're bleeding, they're limping around, crying out loud, they're doing all their ceremonial stuff, cutting themselves until the uh until the blood gushed out upon them. It's amazing. Verse 29, as midday passed, they raved on until that's an interesting phrase, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. Verse you gotta imagine, all the people are like, What? Now the music goes, verse 30. Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me. And the people came near to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name, verse 32. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two seas. And let's see what that is. That was about seven quarts or seven point three liters, two seas of seed, and he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood. Verse 34, and he said, Do it a second time. This is amazing. And they did it a second time, and he said, Do it a third time. And they did it a third time, and the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water. At that time, the offering of the oblation, at the at the at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, Oh Lord, he calls on Yahweh there in the Hebrew. Oh Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things according to your word. Verse 37 Answer me, O Yahweh, answer me, that this people may know that you, oh Yahweh, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. Verse 38, this is probably the key, man. This is the this is such an important verse here. Verse 38, then the fire of Yahweh fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. Yo. And when verse 39, when all the people saw it, they fell on their no doubt, I bet they fell on their faces. When they all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, Oh, Yahweh is God, the Lord. He he is God. No, this is a turning point, man. And Elijah said to them, All the people now, that they're recognizing that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob is the true and living God, the creator of all things. Not this nonsense, Baal worship. And Elijah said to them, verse 40, seize the prophets of Baal, and let no one not uh let no one of them escape. And they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. Yo. But this is where my point comes in that I wanted to share with you guys. And hopefully encourage you. Verse 41. So he had this great victory. I mean gigantic, iconic victory, where God answered his prayer, and all the people recognized, oh yeah, man. The God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, he's God. And he made a fool, a public spectacle of the false gods. Verse 41, and Elijah said to Ahab, Go up, eat and drink, for there's the sound of rushing rain. There hadn't been rain on the land for like three years. Verse 42, so Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up on top of Mount Carmel, and he bowed himself down on the earth, put his face between his knees. Man, he was worshiping. And he said to his servant, Go look towards the sea. And he went up and looked. And his servant said, There's nothing. He said, Go again. He did this seven times. At the seventh time, he said, I see a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea. And he said, Go up and say to Ahab, Prepare your chariot, go down, lest the rain stop you. And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. Listen to this guy. Look at this guy. This is amazing, man. He was so amped up. He was so amped up, man. The hand of the Lord was on Elijah. He gathered up his garment, meaning he he pulled up his cloak, man, and ran before Ahab. Ahab was in a chariot. And Elijah was so amped up, he outran the horses and the chariot, man, and ran to the entrance of Jezreel. Verse 19, uh, verse 1 of chapter 19. This is this is really the point I wanted to make. Ahab told Jezebel, who was a a priest, uh whose father was a priest of Ashtareth, false prophet. Remember, Ashtareth goes back to Nimrod and Simaramus and the mother-child cult, the false religions of the world. And uh, so Ahab told Jezebel, his wife, all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. So she straight up threatens him and tells him she's gonna she wants him dead. You gotta keep in mind, this guy, he was so amped up and ran back thinking, All right, it's on now. Everybody knows the true God. They recognize, oh, we're finally gonna, we're he has such high hopes for for what's gonna happen. And he gets back here, and it's as if she dumps like 10 buckets of ice cold water on him, dousing his fire, and basically says, She she's gonna get she gonna she's gonna find a way to kill him. Then, verse three, then he was afraid. Here's this guy who just boldly stood in front of everybody, a man of faith, calling down fire from heaven, man, and he just like a boss, man, he just took care of all these false prophets. And it says, then he was afraid. He was afraid of her words, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah. So basically, he left Israel, went into the south, the southern country of Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. Listen to this, listen how low he went. He asked that he might die, saying, Lord, I don't I don't want to live. I'm I'm done, man. I'm I can't do this anymore. I'm completely he was so discouraged, he did not want to live. Moses and Jonah are the other two that basically in in the Old Testament that say that Lord, I I I just can't live. I mean, Job also, Job's like, my work, my life's not worth living. But Moses was like, Lord, you you need to kill me now. Lord, take me out. Take my life, he says, for I'm no better but then my father's. He was so bummed, so discouraged. He thought there was no hope, nothing. He didn't realize. He didn't realize the Lord wasn't done, and he wasn't the only one left. When things don't go according to plan, don't get bummed out. The Lord would speak to him. Yeah. And the this is where the term earth, wind, and fire comes from. The strong wind, the earthquake, the the the the fire. Lord wasn't in it, but it's still a small voice. Be encouraged, people. Sometimes the plans we make and our hopes and the things that we want to happen do not happen, but that does not mean that God doesn't care about us and that God doesn't have a plan for us. Seek Him, His will, His plan, because it's always perfect and always right. Doesn't mean you're not gonna have difficulty. Yeah. A still small voice. What are you doing here, Elijah? And Elijah replies to the still small voice, I've been very jealous for the Lord. The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I'm the only one left. And the Lord said, Go return your way to the wilderness of Damascus. That's pretty far. When you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu, the son of Nimshai, you shall anoint to be the king over Israel. And Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel, Maholah, you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. It's amazing because Elijah Elijah He doesn't even die. The Lord takes him up in the whirlwind. He's coming back. You gotta love this dude, man. Be encouraged, people. Be encouraged.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

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