HALT! Too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

Introduction

Thank you, Tim, for leading us in those good songs. It’s been a real joy and encouraging to sing them together with you today. When I heard before coming out that the elders were looking for a man with some experience and who’s a bit older, I panicked, to be honest with you. And I ran out to the store and got some gray hair dye. Kind of comb into my beard and the sides a little bit, and then I looked at my hair and I thought this will never do, so I started shaving it back to make it look like a receding hairline and you know, thin and out and everything. And I don’t know if I can pull it off. But I’m, you know, I’ve no I’m making the effort to do that.

So I I I know today you are evaluating me, and I’m evaluating you too, by the way. But I also want you to know I don’t want us to be preoccupied with that, because I have some things to share with you, regardless of the future, that uh I want you to be able to hear, things that I feel passionate about, things that I feel are important to say, and I hope we can focus in on some of these things this morning. I’ll ask you to open your Bibles into the Old Testament to 1 Kings chapter 19. First Kings chapter 19 as we look at an episode from the life of Elijah. Time when uh he struggled in a lot of ways at a lot of times.

But let’s read this episode in 1 Kings chapter 19 and beginning in verse 1. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with a 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. Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs 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 broom tree, and he asked that he might die, saying, It is enough now, O Lord, take my life, for I’m no better than my father’s.

And he laid down and slept under a broom tree, and behold, an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, and there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water, and he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. And he rose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mouth of God. There’s an acronym, I don’t know where it came from exactly, but it’s been used to apply to people in stressful situations to teach them to cope and to deal with it.

And the idea of the acronym HALT is I’m not sure exactly what the original idea is. Either you need to halt and take care of these things, or these are things that will halt you. Things that can stop you and lead you to quit. And here’s how the acronym spells out.

When any of these things is so, the journey can become too great for us. And we need something. We need to address these things, otherwise we will halt, and we will not complete our journey.

1. Too Hungry

These are four issues in the Christian journey that need attention, that need help. Things that we need to address, or attrition will surely defeat us. Let’s just look at these one at a time, as far as time will allow in this hour. Hunger. When Elijah was too hungry to go on, he needed nourishment. And he was provided nourishment eventually, like the Israelites in the wilderness and like Jesus in the wilderness. The Lord provided. There’s value in fasting from literal food for a time, but at some point he had to eat. You ever had a situation? Well, of course you have, we all have, where hunger gets the better of you. Whether it’s at work or at school or doing something fun or shopping. You try to press on, but you don’t feel well.

I know I get whiteheaded, I get a headache, and you get weak and unfocused, and you need fuel, and that fuel will make all the difference for you. Well, what kind of things do we hunger for in our spiritual journey? You know, physically, some of us, when we get really hungry, we grab the wrong things, don’t we? We grab the things that just are impulsive and that taste good and don’t provide the best nutrition. And spiritually, that’s so too. Sometimes Christians get hungry and they reach for the wrong thing. Well, ultimately, what do we, what do we need? Ultimately, what do we hunger for? Ultimately, what we’re in need of is the word of God. Do you realize that you may be suffering from hunger for the word of God and not even realize it?

You may be thinking, what are you talking about? I have a Bible, I read it all the time. Maybe so, but it takes more than that. You have to feed on the word of God. You have to learn to be nourished by the Word of God. Many people walk around with Bibles in their hands, but they are never truly nourished by the Word of the Lord. The problem is not that we don’t have Bibles. Just like when it comes to nutrition, the problem, at least in our country here, when people are malnourished, is not that there’s not nutritious food available. It’s that we often choose not to eat it. Again, we often choose something else that doesn’t nourish us. We don’t choose the healthy things. The problem is not a lack of Bibles.

The problem is a lack of appreciation of the Word of God. People in society, obviously, but sadly, oftentimes, even Christians simply do not appreciate the Word of God like they used to. And that’s tragic. We don’t study like we used to. We take it for granted. I’ve read it all before. It’s old, it’s dated. So instead, we seek to nourish ourselves from the wisdom of men. And yes, men are needed. Preachers and teachers and writers. But sometimes we place more value and emphasis on the people, on the wisdom and the cleverness and the intelligence and the personality of the men speaking, or maybe their brilliant writing rather than on the Bible. And you can say, well, they all quote the Bible, and yes, they quote the Bible, but the real importance and weight and value of it all needs to be in the word of God and not in men.

First Thessalonians 2 verse 13, we read and we also thank God constantly for this that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. Do we really understand and grasp and appreciate the difference between the word of God and the word of men? Or do we do we get it all mixed up sometimes or the priority in the wrong place or the value in the wrong place? Again, there are some wonderful men who explain things very well. We appreciate them and they they help us and they help organize and help us and guide us in the word of God.

But be careful not to place the emphasis there rather than on the word of God. Apart from the word of God, what men have to say is just empty calories. The substance is in God’s Word. See, people are losing value of the Word of God and they don’t even realize it. Many are starving for lack of the word and don’t know it. And I fear this is going on in the Lord’s church today. We’re influenced. Let’s be honest. We’re influenced by popular denominational speakers. And sometimes they become our model and our inspiration for how we preach as well. And we want to be like them. They’re great. And maybe we can create a popular following like them and be renowned. But let me ask you this do your Joel Osteens and Rick Warren’s and Joyce Myers Bible verses?

Of course they do. But here’s the deal. There’s a difference between using Bible verses and preaching the Word of God. There’s a difference between a clever idea that you’ve come up with where you tack a few verses onto it and preaching God’s word. Many Christians are malnourished because of lack of study, a lack of nourishment, a lack of true preaching, God’s Word. Well, argument. People are bored with the Bible. Unless we come up with something else, we’re going to lose them. Well, if we come up with something else and we keep them, we’ve still lost them. Because what have we kept then too if it is not the word of God? If it’s a person, if it’s an idea or anything else, if it’s not the word of God, what do we got?

Now, again, I’m not saying there’s no place for good teachers, teachers who explain and expound words, the word of God in personal and helpful ways. I’m saying the focus, the emphasis, the true value needs to be on God’s word. I’m saying we must keep our distinctive identity as the Lord’s people and our distinctive foundation based on the word of God. But we have to trust in it. If we’re losing our trust and faith in God’s word, we’re slipping. We have to use it. We have to rely on it. We have to build ourselves on it. No substitutions for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the hearts.

Everything about us needs to evolve around the revelation of the Lord. Everything about our identity, how we identify ourselves and what we pursue and who we seek to be and profess to be needs to revolve around the Word of God. How we identify ourselves in any congregation needs to be not the building. This is who we are. This is not who we are. It’s not any person. Oh, that’s that’s the church where so and so preaches. That’s that church. No, the identity of who we are is not any person among us. It’s not it’s not our our building. It’s not any book any one of us has written. It is not any custom or tradition that we keep, that we do things in a certain order.

It must be our reliance, our profession, our nourishment in the Word of God. Well, what else do we hunger for? What else is weakening us in our hunger? Sometimes what Christians hunger for is genuine, meaningful fellowship. To be truly connected to one another, spiritual family, to be supported by one another, to be exhorted and to be encouraged to talk and to love and to share and to help and to lean on. Let’s read in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. By the way, I’m not sure your preference. I’ve been some places where people say, don’t put so many verses on the screen. We need to turn to them. I’ve been other places people say, put the verses on the screen. It helps us kind of all be together and everything.

I’m used to a screen on this side, and I kind of read from it and point at things. So most of these are going to be on the screen this morning. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 11. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up. We’re talking about fellowship, just as you are doing. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idol, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. I have never seen a Christian fall away from their faith and from the Lord’s body, who had strong relationships with their brethren.

Well, maybe collectively in an apostasy, but I’m talking about an individual losing their way and falling away from the Lord’s church. I’ve never seen someone fall away who didn’t, whose relationships and fellowship was not already deteriorating and in trouble, and they were becoming distant and isolated. The Lord created the church for a reason. No belief, no movement, no quest, no ambition is kept strong and alive unless we are connected with others in it. Well, what else do we sometimes hunger for? How about spirituality? Understand what that means? There’s a lot of secular things in a lot of churches and a lot of physical details that are necessary. A lot of earthly and worldly things pressing for our attention, so much so that sometimes spirituality is crowded out.

What do I mean by spirituality? I’m talking about deep reflection and meditation in God’s word, in prayer, in song. I’m talking about being stirred in your soul by the things of God. I’m talking about the contemplation of God and all that is beyond us. John 6 comes to mind when Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Are you hungry? We need to meditate on some of these sayings and be moved by them and value them and study them and admonish each other in these sayings.

2. Anger Will Halt Your Journey

Well, let’s talk about the A in our acronym. Anger. Too much anger will also halt your journey. You know, perhaps part of the reason Elijah’s journey was halted again. After taking nourishment, Elijah hid out in a cave. And it doesn’t say it explicitly, but to me his tone at least sounds a little bit angry. First Kings 9, verse 9, that he came to a cave and lodged in it, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, throw down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

Anger is an emotion God gave us. We know God gets angry and Jesus got angry. There’s a place for anger. There could be a useful place for anger. There could be a necessary place for anger. But when it lingers, when it dominates, when it festers, it can halt your journey and do very bad things and leave you far from God. Be angry, Paul said, and do not sin, and do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Too many are living in anger. And maybe there was a just reason for their anger at the beginning, but they continue in anger, and it becomes a weight they carry with them. It becomes bitterness, it becomes resentment. Some anger isn’t just at all.

Some anger is petty and selfish and unreasonable. Sometimes it’s based on the wrong desires and the wrong mindset, which will be our lesson later. James 1 19 Notice, my beloved brothers, let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Think about that the next time you’re getting involved in the anger of man. This is not going to produce the righteousness of God. It doesn’t just produce obvious problems like blow ups and flares. It also produces quieter problems that play out over time. Out of anger, I’ve seen Christians do things that they otherwise would have never dreamt of doing. Out of anger, I have seen Christians abandon their principles, abandon their convictions that they’ve held for many years.

Even preach them from the pulpit. Out of anger, I’ve seen Christians leave the Lord’s body. Or sometimes go to congregations that are involved in all kinds of practices they know are wrong and they’ve taught on them, or maybe even go to a denomination, all out of anger, even though they stood for many years in conviction, they got angry, and suddenly they’re doing things you never would have imagined. Anger will halt your journey. It’ll put you on the wrong course. Israel in the wilderness was on a journey. And hunger was a problem, but God took care of that. Anger was another problem Israel had on their journey, but they had to take care of that. But they grew angry. They grew angry with God over lack of provision.

3. Loneliness Can Halt Your Journey

God provided for them, and they grew angry over the manna. They grew angry over situations where they had to wait. And they rebelled in their anger, and in the wilderness they fell. And Moses’ anger, when he struck the rock, kept him from the promised land. And it can do the same to our lives. Anger will halt your journey. It needs to be addressed. Well, let’s go to our next one. What else can halt your journey? Well, loneliness. There’s a time and a place to be alone. There’s a time for solitude and individuality. But being alone too much, it’s not healthy. Loneliness that persists can be deadly. And again, slow attrition, a lot of times, we don’t even see that it’s going on. It goes back to the issue of fellowship, that we don’t walk alone.

Don’t face hardship and trial alone. Romans 12 15 talks about rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Elijah, when he felt alone, he was almost ready to give up, wasn’t he? He thought, I alone am left. What’s the point? Paul, the Apostle Paul. He needed people. Sometimes we get the idea in our heads, he’s kind of this lone ranger traveling around out there doing all these great things. No, mostly there were a group of people with them. You read his letters, you often read we this and we that, and you read about people like Timothy and others who were with him at different times. Paul needed people. He didn’t want to be alone. And when he was alone, it was tough on him. 2 Timothy 4, verse 6, at my first offense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. Do you not hear the personal anguish in that?

He was lonely in that, and it was hard on him. But he says, May it not be charged against them. And he’s thankful that the Lord had stood with him. Jesus needed people. When Jesus went to the garden to pray, he took people with him. Yes, he would go in solitude at times, but he needed people. And in that night in the garden, then he said to them in Matthew 26, 38, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. Jesus wanted people with him. Sometimes we don’t. And we say a lot of times the trouble is we don’t reach out enough to others to help. That’s very true. But sometimes the bigger problem is we don’t reach out enough to ask for help.

Maybe we don’t like some don’t want to be helped. And you know what? I’m guilty of that sometimes. I’ve turned people away from helping me. Why? Pride, stubbornness. I gotta do it alone. I can’t show weakness, especially as a preacher. I can’t show weakness. I’m supposed to be stronger than others, and so no, I don’t need any help. It’s just more manly to be alone and independent and not need anyone, but you can die that way. That will halt your journey. Maybe not overnight, but it will halt your journey. You know, sometimes brethren want to be left alone for other reasons. Sometimes they’re involved things they shouldn’t be involved, don’t want any eyes on that. Some don’t want to get too serious about their Christianity or too involved or too committed, so just keep your distance.

Thank you very much. Just keep it light, just kind of hold your distance. That can be kind of comfortable, actually, for a while, but it runs out. It runs into trouble, it leaves you empty. You miss out on what you really need, and it leaves you unprepared for trials that may be down the road. There’s loneliness among us, unspoken loneliness. There’s others who are choosing to be alone. And a trial may be coming, and you’re not ready for it. Because you become so distant from your brethren that you’ve isolated yourself, and trials are coming. You’re in a bad state there. That has to be addressed. The loneliness can halt your journey. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. When he faced the greatest temptation. What Jesus faced is not just what the devil tried to tempt him with.

4. Tiredness Can Cause Us to Give Up

It was his condition. Jesus, in the temptation in the wilderness, was left in the weakest physical condition possible. He was hungry. Very hungry. He was alone. Very alone. And I would conclude he was probably pretty tired, don’t you think? For 40 days in the wilderness, without eating, alone. He’s got to be exhausted. That was a very vulnerable state to be in. And that’s our last one to be tired. Tiredness. Tiredness can halt our journey. How so? Well, tiredness can cause us to give up. Galatians 6, verse 9. Let us not grow weary of doing good. Let us not grow weary, tired of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. If we don’t halt. We’re going to get tired at times.

That’s a part of it. So what do we do with that? We can ignore it, try to pretend we’re too tough for it, get worn down and out, and that leads to caving, or we can be refreshed, as Galatians 6 verse 10 goes on to talk about, the very next verse. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Doing good for one another helps with our tiredness. The tiredness we have as Christians is not so much about needing rest, it’s about needing encouragement. It’s about needing the good things others do for us and about doing good things for others. That’s what’s going to address our tiredness. We need to be refreshed.

We need to refresh one another by doing good for each other. Say, oh, I’m not tired at all. Well, that’s great. But look around you. There are tired faces around you that need to be refreshed by what you can do for them. Be aware of tiredness and weariness ongoing and what it may be doing. And do something, seek something. Not just anything. Don’t go to the wrong places, but seek true nourishment from the things that God teaches and God provides.

Conclusion

When Israel was in the wilderness, they were on a journey to the promised land. And God was well aware that if they got too hungry, they wouldn’t make it. Or if they got too tired, or too lonely, or too angry. Seems to me it’s the anger that really did them in, right? They had to take care of that, and they didn’t. And that led to rebellion. It was that anger that got them. Israel, a day came when Israel made another journey, the remnant of Israel, after their captivity in Babylon, they had another journey to make, going back to Jerusalem, going back to rebuild. And they faced some similar challenges. We don’t think about that journey so much, but I believe Psalm 107 is addressing that. Let’s just read this and let’s think about them and let’s think about ourselves on our journey and what we need.

Psalm 107 in verse 1. Oh gives thanks to the Lord, for he is good. For his steadfast love endures forever. God’s love is often described as steadfast. You can do a study on that, read that term over and over about his love. His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble, and gathered in from the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Think about their journey. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul, he fills with good things.

We are all on a journey. Don’t starve yourself. Don’t get so tired that you stop. Address it. Watch out for that anger. That anger inside you or just start getting angry at everything and you hang on to it. That will lead you to bad places. And it will not solve anything. It won’t get you what you want. It will just destroy you. And watch out for loneliness, for isolation when you’re not talking to people. And you’re not sharing, you’re not communicating in genuine fellowship. You weren’t meant as a Christian to live that way. That will get you. The journey is too great. These things will halt us.

Help us, Father, to consider the journey before us. Trials ahead that we we can’t foresee that we have no idea about at this time. As well as the day-to-day trials that challenge us, that try to wear us down and beat us down, and the things that tempt us, the worldly allurements and the allurements of false teaching and false messages and false ideas and all these things that might may tempt us to fall away from you. Help us to be aware of these things and help us to strengthen ourselves for the journey. To address these things that would discourage us, these things that would stop us. And Father, please help us to be ever so mindful of those around us, attentive to those around us, thinking about them, talking to them, praying for them, considering what we can do for them, to keep one another encouraged and built up.

Keep us, Father, from discouragement and weariness and all the things that would pull us away from you. And may we look ahead to new things and better things. May we ambitiously try to grow and try to become a stronger people for you, to reach more people and to reach one another, that your kingdom may flourish, that your name may be glorified as we march toward that day of eternity. All these things we pray, Father, in Jesus’ name, amen.