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Writer's pictureLou Hernández

21-07=24 - A BATTLE WHEN GODS PRETEND TO BE GOD - III - ELIJAH - 1Kings 18:17-40

MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

I invite you to pray with me, Father God hear our prayer, we humbly cry before you as it's written, "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive it" (Matt: 21 -22) and yes! we believe in you, we trust in you, and we believe you are the maker of miracles. we are asking for healing for our dear members of our family and also dear friends who are suffering from illnesses in their lives fighting and suffering under a lot of pain, You know them by their names; (Gaby, Vicky, Nancy, Tere, Liz , Gloria, Stevie, Les, Miguel, Socrates, Kate, Sara's mom, ) as your precious children, strengthen their faith in you with a miracle in their lives oh! Father God hear our prayer, and we also pray for all the people around the world special the children, who are suffering from wars, devastation, hunger, pain, hate and disbelieving in you, we know beloved Father God you love them so much oh! Father God hear our prayer, we ask you in the name of Our Lord of Lords and King of Kings your beloved son Jesus Christ. AMEN!


So this morning a quick overview where we’ve been and where we’re going: from a sun sheltered, hideaway brook to an all-inclusive room and board cook, to our event  today, a ‘gloves off, bare knuckled’ donnybrook.  Sorry – couldn’t resist.


This summary bringing us to one of the most dramatic battle confrontations we see in the OT.  As to drama, think of the 7th game of the Stanley Cup combined with the last seconds of a World Cup final or Super Bowl with the game on the line.  Yet this contest, far greater.  What’s at stake not some, ‘we’re #1’ euphoria, but the future of a people, the destiny of a nation.


Capture the scene.  A gathering of the mighty and the powerful.  The religious and the political,  450 of the religious and the rule of a King.  


It's likely another 400 of the religious are also there. These are the priests and priestesses of Asherah, the goddess of fertility and sex.  Though they’re not mentioned later in our account , I doubt they weren’t in attendance given God through Elijah had commanded them to be there.  Together, Baal and Asherah offered sex, success and power the perfect weapons to steal Israel’s hearts and displace the worship of God.  These are Ahab’s all-powerful gods, their prophets later to be seen chanting and prancing as they go through their religious machinations.  


But as far as this battle is concerned, focus belongs to the prophets of Baal.  It’s a battle of supremacy, a choice before whom people will bow.  Baal was the god of the heavens who was believed to speak with the voice of thunder.  Thunder means lightning, so the challenge of fire from heaven is a battle playing to Baal’s strengths.  Asherah’s battle is more about lifestyle and indulgence so celebration of her would come in unrestrained, post-victory worship.  


And on the other side of these - just one. Standing alone. Nothing conveying position or power.  Nothing that overly impressed.  That said, he was stronger and far better nourished than those who opposed.  How that was possible given the events of the last 3½ years was anybody’s guess.  


Though vastly outnumbered, Elijah appeared unconcerned about the odds stacked against him.  


Quite the contrary - he was robust in appearance and words.  His words challenging, demanding.  In actuality he taking control, he issuing the challenge to the king.  He standing in the presence of a far greater King than Ahab.   


On this occasion when they meet, Elijah again makes it clear that Ahab is responsible for the trouble that has fallen on Israel – not the trouble of no rain and the ensuing drought but the far greater trouble of trying  to remove God from the land and installing other gods in His place.  

At the heart of it, Elijah’s diagnosis is no different than what he would say to us today, the only difference is that his focus would be on the different gods we choose to worship.  Gods not etched in stone but etched in hearts. Gods pursued to make us feel, we’ve achieved, we’ve arrived, we’ve attained - things that will bring us success and in our success, make us feel significant.  With these in hand, we can live as we want as we determine our own destiny.  And yet, in time those leading to drought not much different than the drought experienced by those in our story today.  


Their problem and ours is that we have a worship problem.  And without getting our, ‘who we worship’ right we will never get our, ‘how we live’ right.  This is the central issue Elijah is bringing before the people of Israel and it is the central issue God brings to each one of us – Who or what is it that we truly worship?  Listen to what non-Christian, university professor and best-selling author, David Foster Wallace, observes: 


There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.


Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.


They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.


Wallace, described by the LA Times as, One of the most influential and innovative writers of the last 20 years, described it well but finding no answers for what he saw, hung himself at 46 years.


It's with similar understanding of the disease Wallace describes, that we see Ahab in what he has brought to Israel. Elijah now setting the terms of what’s to be done in light of where they are, 


:19 Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel.  Notice again who is calling the shots.  The seemingly all powerful king, Ahab, falling in line with what Elijah has commanded.  Ahab first desperately wanting ‘Elijah’s rain’ before seeking his blood.  


It’s for this reason Ahab complies with Elijah’s demands.  Does he do so, confident what the outcome will be?  Does he imagine 1 against so many, posing no threat?  It’s possible.  After all, beginning with the kings who have preceded him, Israel’s rulers had dismantled, one belief at a time, the God in Whom they once believed.  Now they’d gotten to the point where there were no more significant beliefs left, so putting his gods in place wasn’t a huge problem.  And when he gave them, ‘live as you want, indulge as you desire’ lifestyles, who was there to oppose? 


And what had this supposed God done about it?  Apparently nothing.  Not even when Jezebel killed so many of God’s followers and prophets.  So, as far as they had come to believe, no response equaled no God.  And no God meant they were free to establish their own.  


With this, Ahab and those with him, must have felt somewhat self-assured and strong, even as they gathered in their clusters encouraging and energizing one another.      

So this is where we’ve got to - the prophets of Baal and the prophet Elijah standing for a showdown. Whose god will answer their prayers?   


But before going further, notice Elijah puts before the people the decision before them, Who is God?  He does so, making it very clear the place in which they now stand.  For so long they had been living as they have wanted, falling in with whatever others were doing, not coming face to face with the decisions they had made.  Like what you and I so easily can do – so caught up in our living that we never take a hard look at whether we have a life worth living?  Where what we profess to believe, isn’t actually what we truly believe.  


Where how we are living can be reduced to meeting friends, earning advancement, pumping some iron, chasing some high.  For what?  So we can add 25 more pounds to that weight, get a better salary, gain another friend?  But really living for what?  As Wallace observed, Are these the things to which our lives are committed, for which our lives are lived?  Elijah saying – Stop and take an honest look. His challenge: How long will you go limping between two different opinions?  Who is the God for Whom you truly live?  

This question not asked of the priests.  They’ve made their decision.  This question not even asked of the king.  He’d already cast his vote. 


No, Elijah’s challenge was to those who look on; who’d come almost as spectators to an event, casting their bets with the majority.


Elijah’s words making it clear that they were living with a divided heart – their worship given to the gods of the day and yet holding on, giving a small portion to the god of their distant past – a VERY distant past.    


Not much different than a great many professing Christians are prone to do, in essence worshipping a hybrid god – some Jesus and a whole lot of popular and accepted beliefs of the day. More or less treating these as equal weight beliefs.  


Sometimes this is because of what we see but actually really fail to see.  Consider -not long ago the accepted belief of what was thought to be a ‘simple, very basic’ single cell organism but now, it’s been described, The tiniest bacterial cells are ... in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing 1000s of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of a hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.  Each microscopic cell is as functionally complex as a small city.


And who’s to say, that in a time to come, even this complexity may be revealed to be even greater than what’s we now understand.  Seeing but not truly seeing. 


And it’s this self-imposed blindness, Elijah is calling those gathered to see that they are living in two worlds and he making it clear, that option is not open to them. The choice? decide – If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.  Understand, Elijah is not testing their ability to say the right creed, he is calling them to determine who is the right Lord.  And IF He is Lord, then follow Him.  Obey Him, live for Him.


As it applies to us, the question is far more than is Jesus God?  We’re told even the devil believes that.  It’s even more than is Jesus our Saviour? as important as this is.  To be certain we are told, There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim 2:15 and Jesus Himself tells us, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No man comes unto the Father except by Me  Jn 14:6.  So deciding on that is an imperative.  IF you have never come to Jesus, asking Him to forgive your sins and make you a child of God, you have decided against Him. There is no neutral, ‘in between’.  But understand, Jesus comes to you this morning in love, wanting you to know His great His love for you.  He invites never demands.  But until an invitation is acted on, it is an invitation that is refused.


Notice though, Elijah isn’t just saying believe, he is saying follow –  that means trusting our lives to Him, obeying Him in how we live - in the choices we make, the actions in which we engage, the words that we say.  That means a definitive decision and action where we bow our will and follow Jesus as Lord.    


The battle itself is one most of us know well. Let’s read: Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.  And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.    1 Kings 18:25-29 

This is a great visual.  The scene taking place on what had become the prophets’ home field where they had gathered for some time.  Their altar already in place.  Tinder dry combustibles just waiting for the smallest spark.  Their bull butchered, now all that remained was for the fire to come and their sacrificial dance would become a glorious victory dance.  


And so their appeal to their god began with great expectation until expectation turned to desperation.  Still all was not lost as they were coming close to the noonday sun when its heat would be most intense.  But with nothing happening, desperation turning into frenzy.  Blood flowing, swords waving, voices shouting.  Elijah added to the chaos, as he turned on the scorn, Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.


Perhaps ‘this god is musing’, wondering who you are?  Perhaps he is contemplating what he should do or is trying to determine where he could find the fire starter.  Perhaps ‘he is relieving himself – literally that he’s on the toilet and is too busy to come. Maybe he’s asleep so amplify up the volume so he will awaken to do what you need.  


And their response, They cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets till the blood gushed out upon them.  :28 


The prophets of Baal receive no response, no answer, no voice. Sincerity not enough, volume not enough.  Religiosity not enough.  


Just exhaustion.  Because that’s where religion ultimately takes you.  In some cases a lot of bruises and blood, all the while thinking this is doing you some good only to discover that it has taken you nowhere.  


Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near me.” So all the people approached him. Then he repaired the Lord’s altar that had been torn down:  Elijah took 12 stones—according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel will be your name” and he built an altar with the stones in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold about 4 gallons.  Next, he arranged the wood, cut up the bull, and placed it on the wood. He said, “Fill 4 water pots with water and pour it on the offering to be burned and on the wood.”  Then he said, “A 2nd time!” and they did it a 2nd time. And then he said, “A 3rd time!” and they did it a 3rd time.  So the water ran all around the altar; he even filled the trench with water. : 30-35


Contrast Elijah’s actions with the frenzy and loud voices of religion just witnessed.  His actions certain and controlled.  His first actions were to rebuild God’s altar that had been torn down long ago.  Those stones scattered and unused ever since that day.  12 stones once again put in place as God’s altar of sacrifice.  These stones representing the covenant relationship God had made with the 12 tribes of Israel many years before.  Elijah’s task was no small thing, as these stones were of sufficient size to serve as an altar of sacrifice yet he would build this with no help from others.  Only the hands that served the living God would touch these rocks.   

Once completed, Elijah turned his attention to digging a trench.  That done, he enlisted others to pour container after container of water in, around and over the sacrifice to be made.  Nothing left to doubt.  


And then Elijah does what the followers of other gods had done – he prays.  


At the time for offering the evening sacrifice, the prophet Elijah approached the altar and said, “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel and I am your servant, and that at your word I have done all these things.  Answer me, Lord! Answer me so that this people will know that you, the Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back.”  


In his prayers - no desperation.  No religiosity.   No avalanche of words.  Just 60 words.


Elijah’s prayer, a very different response, Answer me, O Lord, so that this people may know that you oh Lord are God and and that you have turned their hearts back. 

Then the Lord’s fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.  When all the people saw it, they fell facedown and said, “The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!” 


Obviously what the people witnessed was the undeniable presence of God, moving in power.


Elijah’s victory wasn’t accomplished when he faced the 450 on Carmel; his victory was accomplished long before when, taking God at His word, he acted fully believing His word to be true.  God had warned, If you turn away to worship other gods, He would shut the heavens so there’d be no rain Deut 11:13-17  Assured of that truth, Elijah, confronted Ahab telling him it would no longer rain.  Elijah, a man just like us, who believed as James says, Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for 3 years and 6 months. 5:17.


I don’t think fervently prayed is just referring to the time when he goes nose to nose with Ahab rather I think it speaks to the time before that as he looks around and sees evil, the result of God being dismissed.  It’s during these times, watching the impact of life gone wrong that his fervent prayers are offered up to God.  He, not asking for a new king, a new man or a new plan, rather he calling on God to act according to His word and revealing His power.  Only then, when rains stop and the things relied on dry up, are people truly confronted with life without God.  In this Elijah is actually praying for God to bring the repentance that always precedes true revival.   

So what are we to take from this?  First understand what we’re told, Elijah was a man just like us. That is hard to comprehend but God’s Word tells us it’s true.  Which is to say, that God isn’t looking for our pedigree, He’s looking for our trust, people who will believe what He says is true. 2 Chronicles tells us, The eyes of the LORD roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him.  2 Chr 16:9  So what can we say that means for us?    


Can we dare to believe that God wants us to bring His truth, His revival through our prayers as we bow to His Lordship?  The value of our faith based solely on the object of our faith.  This isn’t about us, it’s about the Lord Jesus Christ and our willingness to pray to Him as Lord in faith, believing.  Praying that we will see revival in our homes, in our marriages, with our kids, in our schools, in our workplaces, in this church so that the power of God will be released?  Revival first in us and then through us, asking God to bring a mighty revival where people are set free, made new in Christ.  Where the broken are made whole, where the addicted are set free, where the lost find home.  All found in Jesus – to the praise of His glory!


Where we seek the Holy Spirit to come in power to reveal God’s powerful and transforming love, doing His miraculous – the greatest of all, where sinners find forgiveness.  


This story ends with a cleansing of the land in what we read in :36-40, Then Elijah ordered them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let even one of them escape.” So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon and slaughtered them there.  


The false gods torn down, evil destroyed.  

  

All because Elijah believed God and in His power he was able to do the extraordinary because he prayed to an extraordinary God, the difference not in the man but in His God.   


Elijah the Fury Prophet and Servant of God



THANK YOU FOR WATCHING OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU

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