Elijah was a man just like us
1 Kings 18 - Gods power demonstrated at Mount Carmel
I would like to start by performing an amazing magic trick. I am going to make something vanish before your very eyes, without touching it with my hands in any way. Are you ready? OK, I'd like you to pick up the sheet with verses and stuff on, and hold it up so you can see the two crosses and the spot. Close your left eye, hold it up about 15" from you and very slowly bring it towards you while focussing on the middle cross. What happens?
Say hello to your blindspot! I'm sure that Harry will be delighted to give you the full scientific details, but basically there is a little bit of your eye that you can't see out of - but you don't know it is there. Drivers have probably all experienced the same kind of thing on the motorway - you check your rear view mirror, check over your shoulder and are about to pull out when there is a car there! Oops!
There are sometimes things in our environment that we can't see and are not aware of, and that is an important point that I'll come back to later.
1 Kings 18v17-40; Elijah and the prophets of Baal
Gods people were assimilated into the world
Remember what Harry was saying last week about the historical setting? The kingdom of Israel had separated after Solomon died into the northern kingdom (called Israel ) and the southern kingdom (called Judah ). Judah had a series of good and bad kings, Israel just had one bad king after another, and none worse than king Ahab.
King Ahab had married Jezebel, a foreigner daughter of a high priest, and her foreign gods of Baal and Asherah had become firmly established in the kingdom of Israel . Although our passage opens with Ahab accusing Elijah of being the "troubler of Israel" for bringing the drought, Elijah ignores the symptom and goes straight to the cause - Ahab and his father before him had abandoned YHWH and followed the Baals - and in Israel the character of the king shaped the character of the people.
I would bet that for the majority of the people of Israel there was no big decision to follow the Baals, participate in their holy days, enjoy their sacrifices and practices. It had just become part of the establishment, part of the way things worked. part of everyday life and they had just gradually assimilated it into their way of life too. They probably didn't directly turn their back on the Lord God, they would have said they were still Israelites and would still follow some of Gods commandments. alongside the practices of the Baals, mixing the two religions together.
Losing their distinctiveness, absorbing the ideas and values of the world that surrounds them and placing those ideas and practices on the same level as the divine instruction they had through Gods word - without realising that they were doing anything wrong!
They needed a clear voice to call them back to a right relationship with God.
Nothing like that today, of course. Or is it? Is the church in danger of losing its distinctiveness, absorbing the ideas and values of the world that surrounds us and placing those ideas and practices on the same level as the divine instruction through Gods word? Are we in that danger?
It can be very hard to identify the influences which undermine our own faith and practice simply because of the subtle way it is part of our whole worldview. It is often easier to identify it in other cultures. I heard an Australian principle of a South African theological college preaching one day, and he explained how in South Africa he has come across many problems which emanate from a traditional African worldview - Christians training to be ministers who are terrified of witchdoctors, families where the naming of children has to depend upon a dream with bad consequences for disobeying it, and others. It is easy for him to see the outside influences affecting their Christian lives.
What is if for us? What are the elements of this worlds way of thinking which may be affecting our Christian thinking and practice? Thinking back to my opening illustration, what are our cultural blindspots? They are there, but we normally remain blissfully unaware of them.
Whose will be the clear voice that would call us back to a right relationship with God?
It is interesting to consider Jesus' words in Matt 6:24 "No-one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
But God demands that they choose
Elijah arranges a showdown on Mt. Carmel , a coastal mountain centrally placed in Israel . Although Jezebels 400 prophets of Asherah didn't show up, the 450 prophets of Baal did. The scene is set for a tremendous showdown and the people of Israel crowd together around the competitors.
Elijah's words ring out "How long will you waver between two opinions? If YHWH is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him" .
How long will you waver? How long will you chop and change and try to merge together two incompatible ways of thinking? There is a fundamental dichotomy between YHWH and Baal; you cannot serve both, you have to choose which one you will serve.
Elijah then sets out the terms of the contest. Which one is God, YHWH or Baal? Let there be a test of power. Baal was supposed to be a god of fertility and nature. The drought which YHWH had sent had already shown him impotent in one of his areas of expertise. Now the challenge was to call down fire from heaven. Not an unreasonable one from the point of view of the priests of Baal - they didn't cry foul, they were pleased to get on with the job. They believed that faith was sound, that their Baal could be trusted.
When the chips were down, how wrong they were.
They were given every advantage - they chose their bull first, they prepared first, they went first. But it would avail them nothing. Hour after hour hundreds of them shouted into the sky, asking for a sign from a silent heaven. Elijah starts to taunt them "Shout louder! Perhaps he is deep in though, or busy (a coy synonym for 'using the toilet') or travelling! Maybe he is asleep!". Elijah is indulging in some rather ribald humour at their expense.
The priests of Baal grew even more agitated, gashing themselves with swords and spears until their blood flowed. But as it says in v29 there was no response. No-one answered. No-one paid attention.
Faith in something that is not real will not produce results, no matter how fervent your faith.
Then we see Elijah set up his altar of unworked stones. Following Gods instructions from Ex 20v25 and Deut 27v5. twelve stones to remind the divided people of the northern kingdom that Israel comprised twelve nations without division. A three foot trench is dug around the altar, the sacrifice is made ready and then, astonishingly, he arranges for the sacrifice and the wood to be drenched with water - enough water was poured onto the sacrifice that the runoff filled the trench.
Then at the time for the sacrifice, Elijah simply prayed. 1 Kings 18:36-38 "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again." Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
Even now, unimaginable power - not just for the all-consuming fire that instantly burned up the sacrifice, the wet wood and everything else, but for the control that meant that none of the bystanders were harmed.
There is no disputing the winner of this contest. Gods' man stood forth alone, with nobody standing beside him and through him Gods power was seen in dramatic form. Gods people saw this tremendous act of power and decided to follow God whole-heartedly.
What choices do we make?
What can we expect to see nowadays? Do I expect a charismatic leader of men to appear and call down fire from heaven in order to call us back to God? No, I'm not. Because I believe that the most perfect example of Gods man has already been seen on this earth, in Jesus Christ. I believe that the most tremendous example of Gods power was seen in the resurrection.
I don't hold anything up at the moment as an opponent to the Lord God in the manner of the Baals of Elijah's day. But I want you to think about the cross of Jesus, the place where the Son of God died to take away your sin (as many of us remembered at the 9.30 communion service this morning). God laid our punishment on his shoulders. And as a final seal on the effectiveness of Jesus' sacrifice, God raised him from the dead in a new resurrection body on the third day.
Then think of those words of Elijah's. If the LORD is God, follow Him .
He is worthy of our wholehearted adoration, our wholehearted service. And perhaps we can think about, discuss amongst ourselves, what our current cultural blindspots are. Where are we assimilating our worlds culture and allowing it to guide our thinking. possibly not in accordance with the Bible. I don't know, but I'd guess that materialism and money are two areas where we most easily fall short of the biblical standards, although the individualism which is endemic in our society is probably right up there too. In the land where every mans home is his castle, and there is plenty to entertain us and absorb us within our castles we can lose sight of the fact that Jesus' church is known as the body of Christ, not the individuals of Christ. We are meant to exist in community, and by our love for one another demonstrate to the unbelievers the reality of Jesus.
This passage is important to me. Twice this passage of scripture has set forth a challenge before me that I must answer. The first time was in 1983 when I first became a Christian. One of the only things I knew of the Bible at that time was the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and that was because I remembered reading an article around that time that mentioned that there was evidence of rock melted by extreme temperatures there (although I've not been able to substantiate that while I've been preparing for today) The second time was in 1994 after I had been talking for a long while with a close friend of Jackie Pullinger.
C.T Studd, the famous missionary to Africa said " If Jesus Christ be God , and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him. "
What do you say?
Alex White
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