1 Kings chapter 18. 1 Kings 18. We'll stay right here in 1 Kings
18. This passage is a message and a challenge to this religious
world that is at that time and what we live in in our day. It
was specifically a sign and a message to a particular king. This is
his message for him. And this is a particular sign
and a message to every king. We looked at the other day about
Uzziah, didn't we? King Uzziah. That's every one
of us. I'm king of my castle. Did you
know that? You're king of your world, your day, of your family,
whatever it is. In Kansas, they changed the law
called castle laws. And that's your car now. I'm
king of my car. You try to get in my car, I can
shoot you. We want to be king over everything, don't we? I pray we can see this as a message
from Elijah to us individually. He goes out of his way. This
is an all-day event. And there's a whole lot of dead
people at the end of it to give one king a message. Would the
Lord go out of His way to bring a message to one of His children?
He said, I've given nations for you. He started up wars. Killed hundreds of thousands.
But you know what it took? If you know God, you know what it
took for you to be saved? Absolutely everything. And it
took God to do it. And His blood had to be shed
in all of Providence throughout the time. Every particle of dust
floating in the skies, in the universe. I saw a shooting star
the other day. It can't penetrate this atmosphere
unless God allows it and He purposed it. What if that was to land
on me and kill me? Well, then God would be out,
wouldn't He? Uh-uh. That ain't how it works. He's
the Lord of all. I pray we can see this is to
us, individually. This is to the person running
wild, sinning against God. It's for everyone caught up in
false religion that they think is real and they're really committed
to it, not knowing who they worship. Like you told that woman in the
well, you don't know who you worship. Act like you worship. You're
going through the motions of physical activity, but you don't know
who you worship. And this is for every believer already believing. You've walked with the Lord a
long time and you have unbelief. I have unbelief." You can't have
unbelief unless you believe. There can't be a contrast. You
don't know no different before that, do you? In 1 Kings 16, when this started,
it says, Ahab, he did evil on the side of the Lord. And he
said, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the
sins of his father. And so he served Baal and worshipped
Baal. It was a light thing. Take it
or leave it. I got to go to church. It's just something we do. I
got to go do my laundry. That's in the same category.
I love pizza. Oh, I love church. It was a light thing to Ahab.
And the Lord said, Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel
to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. This is an offender of God. That's
who this is. And so Elijah the Tishbite, God's
prophet come to him and he says, before whom I stand there shall
not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word. For
three years it didn't rain. For three years it didn't dew.
I got some weeds growing in my front yard because the dew settles
in. It drips off the roof a little bit. It's just enough to keep
a couple of weeds alive. There wasn't even dew. Lord dried
up that area of the country, that area of the world. No dew,
no rain, no moisture. For three years, not one drop.
Ahab was this wicked man. He was lying to Israel. Because
of his sins, God brought this to pass. But he did it on purpose. That drought and reservoirs going
down, that hot, high-pressure zone that's sitting over top
of that part of the world, He dried His water up from. It was
on purpose. Magnify His glory and to save His people. Look
here at verse 17. 1 Kings 18, 17. And it came to
pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, and Ahab said unto him, Art thou
he that troubleth Israel? Elijah wouldn't want trouble
in Israel, was he? He was God's prophet. God's preacher. And they always seemed to be
blamed for causing trouble. Shake up some hearts of men if
the Lord used them. But it's the opposite. That man come and
tell them the truth about man. Boy, it hurts. Telling truth
about sweet little grandma and grandpa and your kids and everything
else. We just thought, oh, we'd like
to be blinded. Pull the wool over our eyes and oh, everybody's
going to heaven. Tell them about a holy God that they offended.
God sends me to hell, he is just and right. If I'm standing on
my own outside of Christ, he's right. You talk about a good
friend. My brother used to tell me, he said,
I don't like you good enough to lie to you. That's telling the truth. That's
a friend. Tell the truth about God. Tell
the truth about man. Tell the truth about sin and
judgment. Salvation. Who it's in. Now where it's at,
who it's in. He says in verse 18, and he answered,
I have not troubled Israel, but thou, and thy father's house,
in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and
thou hast followed Balaam. God has not changed. God has
not wavered. You have. God's the same yesterday,
today, and forever, isn't He? Who changed? Man did. He ain't
lost. You are. That prophet is telling the king
that. The king. Those men were valiant. Eighty
men went in there and told Uzziah, get out. They went against that
powerful king. Here's one prophet standing in
front of the king. You've sinned against God. So a gospel message is coming.
Truth is coming. Christ is going to be proclaimed.
He's going to be declared and displayed. Look here in verse
19. Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel and to Mount
Carmel and the prophets of Baal 450 and the prophets of the groves
400 which eat at Jezebel's table. That's 850 prophets. You go get
everybody on your payroll, King Ahab. Get them all, bring them
here, and there's one man of God going against them. You want
to be that man? I tell you what, the ratio then
is a whole lot better than the ratio is today. 850 to 1. 850 false prophets
and one of God's ministers. The ratio is much worse in our
day. Verse 20. So Ahab sent unto all the children
of Israel and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. And
Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between
two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not
a word. What a message! He's talking about preaching
for a verdict. Here it is. Elijah kept things simple. And
he's not suggesting that the Lord is not God. He's not airing
a doubt. But he is laying out the challenge.
He's laying out the verdict to all of Israel, to all false prophets,
to every wicked king, and to you and I today. How long are
you going to halt between two opinions? How long do you... What a question. This world seems
to have hundreds of different religions, don't they? They have
hundreds of denominations in every town. There's two. That's it. I asked my dad that
when I was a little tiny boy. I said, Daddy, how many religions... I heard
something in school. They had some number about something.
Somebody documented these things, studied these things. And I was
going to... I didn't ask a question unless I already knew the answer
to it. I was going to teach Dad something. It didn't work out.
Daddy, how many religions do you think there are in the world?
He goes, there's two, son. I thought, this man's crazy.
He said, there's works and there's grace. You put that on a skillet
and you boil it down and that's all you got. Either man does
something and God's dependent on man or God does something. How long are you going to hop
between the two things? Throwing this up in the air. Oh, I believe
grace, but I believe this other stuff, and everybody is just
the same, and all these other things. No. How long are you
going to hop between these two opinions? Every person alive
can read the scriptures. And then they can but against
them. Find excuses against them. The Lord is either sovereign
or He's not. You want to hawk between two
opinions? Is God God? Does He do what He
wants? And you're dependent on Him?
Or can you resist Him? It's one or the other. Lord Sovereign
or He's not. People read Romans 8, 28. Oh,
all things work together for good. Saw it in a movie the other
day. Stitched on a pillow. Embroidered
on a pillow. All things work together for
good. And then they turn around and they complain about the providence
of God. They complain and worry. Oh, what's going to happen? Just
melting. For a believer, we experience that. We have times of unbelief.
You know what that's called? Halting between two opinions. You've
got your idea of what's going on, and then God declares something. That's conviction right there.
Where did this horrible sin come from? Of us not believing God.
Of us thinking we're wiser than God. That we know something.
It doesn't matter what God's Word says. Where'd that come
from? It came from a garden of Eden.
Man fell in the garden. Now, how long are you going to
halt between two opinions on that? Well, surely, Kevin, everybody's got
a little bit of good in them, don't they? Man's either plumb
dead or he was wounded. He either was blind, spiritually
blind, or he's dimmed a little bit. He needs some reading glasses
and he can see out of one eye. They're either lost or they're
just turned around. They're either dead or they're
wounded. They're either dim or blind. How long are you going
to talk between two opinions? I ask myself and I ask you, have
you ever been lost? Have you ever been blind? I was blind. Now I see. Well, I saw my whole life. That's
too long. You're still blind. You just
don't know it. You're feeling around. You don't know any different.
Was you blind? Either Christ saved his people
or he didn't. Oh, the lies that run rampant. God loves everybody. God wants
something. That ain't God. If God loves
everybody and there's people in hell, does that mean God loves
people that are in hell and he just wishes they wouldn't? What
blasphemy! Blasphemy! One or the other. Isn't it? How long are you going to hop
between two opinions? You pick a side. You settle on a verdict
right now. Either the Lord preserves His
people for eternity, in His hand, all by Himself, or He doesn't. And it's up to man to preserve
themselves. It's up to man to give themselves holiness, to
get better, to observe days and nonsense. That's blasphemy. Christ completed it all. He sanctified them once. That's
all it took. Because He did it. God's the
one that did it. You going to add something to
that? Halt between two opinions because you still think you're
right. How long are you going to halt?
What a question to anyone and to a child of God floundering
in unbelief. How long are you going to keep
this up? Your thoughts and your ways, they're not His ways, are
they? Often times, this is so misquoted, In Joshua 24, it says,
and if you seem evil to serve the Lord, choose you this day
whom you will serve. People don't look at the quotation,
that's still God speaking. It says in Joshua, this is God
speaking. Whether the gods which your father
served that were on the other side of the flood, on that side
of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in the lands you
dwell on this side of the river. What's the options? If you think
serving THE God is evil, THE Lord, I don't want to do that.
You know what your options are? Any false religion that suits
you. Anything man can dream up. What a responsibility. How are
we going to make it? How is a sinner going to make
it? How are we going to believe God and find Him true and ever
remain a liar? The Lord's still speaking in
Joshua 24. He says, but as for me and my
house, His body, His church, His people, chosen before time
and put in Christ, we will serve the Lord. That's what's going
to happen. You go read the Ten Commandments.
There's promises. You shall. That's what's going to happen
for the Lord's people. Everything He commands is going
to be put in Christ and that's what's going to be effectual
in His people that are made righteous in His righteousness. Thanks
be to God, our Lord was speaking. He is sovereign. He saves His
people. He keeps His people because we
can't. We can't do it ourselves. Now
look at verse 21. 1 Kings 18, 21. And Elijah came
unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two
opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him. But if Baal, then
follow him. And the people answered him not
a word. What a short gospel message.
If the Lord be God, and He most definitely is, You follow him. But if you want to keep doing
what you're doing, follow that one. And the people were silent. Silent. Shut up to God. What
a magnificent thing. What a magnificent thing. You know the Lord will give a
man anything he wants. If he wants to approach the Holy
God by himself, He's going to let you do it. You want to come
to God, stand on your works and your decisions and your choices
and your baptism and your heritage, He'll let you. It's going to
be death and damnation for eternity. A man needs mercy. I want to
approach him Christ. I need an advocate. I ain't standing
before that judge by myself. I need representation. Oh, abundance. He delights to show mercy. He
provided himself as a lamb. He provided himself a sacrifice.
It says in verse 23, Let them therefore give us two
bullocks and let them choose one bullock for themselves, you
pick which one you want, and cut it in pieces and lay it on
wood and put no fire under it. I will dress the other bullock
and lay it on wood and put no fire under it. And you call on
the name of your gods and I'll call on the name of the Lord."
That's so bold. You call on all your gods, I'm
going to call on the Lord. And the God that answereth by
fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and
said, they didn't say anything before, did they? Everybody's
quiet. Now they said, oh, it's well
spoken. Good idea. Now they're popping
up. There was a challenge issued.
You pick which bullock you want. You cut it up. That's your custom.
You lay it upon the world to be burned. But don't you dare
put any fire underneath it. I'm going to do the same thing.
And I'm not going to put any fire under mine either. And we're
both going to pray. You pray to your gods, I'll pray
to the Lord. And this will be the proof of whose God is God
who consumes it by fire. And silent people popped up.
Oh, well spoken. That's a good idea. We've experienced
this before. We've all been alive a little
bit. Y'all seen a campfire? The likelihood of a lightning
bolt striking this campfire and lighting it for me It's pretty
slim. I ain't never seen that happen.
And so they're thinking, well, we won't put no fire on it. Ours
won't be consumed. But Elijah's ain't going to be
consumed either. And it's a wash. Everybody's a safe face. He'll
get out of here, leave us alone, quit telling us what God says,
and we can go back to playing religion. doing what we want. Why no fire?
He said don't put no fire on it and I ain't going to put any
fire underneath mine either. Why? Man attempts to spark a
fire with their zeal when only God can. We want to light our
own fires. We want to light fires under
other people. That's a phrase in common usage,
isn't it? There's some people I'd like
to light a fire under. I tried to yesterday. Get them
going. Don't you put no fire under.
Don't you put your hand to it. God's a consuming fire. He's
a destructive heat to those that He has not given faith to bow
to Him. You can't escape Him. He'll consume
everything. Praise Him. He's a consuming
fire, the only source of warmth, the only source of life to those
He has given faith to. Isn't that something? And Hebrews
12 says, for our God is a consuming fire. Deuteronomy 4 says, for
the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Jealous
God. This earth, these elements, gold,
silver, it's all going to burn. Nobody can escape it. Right now,
they've got climate change all over the news, everything else.
What an opportunity to preach. Do we stand up and just throw
them in our nose and people say, HUSH, YOU'RE WRONG, I'M RIGHT.
What an opportunity to preach. Oh, what's going on? It's getting
hot. God's going to burn this earth. He said he would, wasn't
he? Man did it. In that wise again hunt, sin.
Did God do that? Man do it. Man sinned, didn't
he? What an opportunity. When God
does a work in a person's heart though, that burning love is
in a person and it cannot be extinguished. On that road to
Emmaus, our Lord comforted our brethren. Come to them. Didn't
reveal himself yet, but he went back to Moses. And he preached
himself through Moses, through all the Scriptures. What a walk!
What a teacher! Wouldn't that be something to
be? After he revealed himself and he immediately departed.
And they said one to another, did not our heart burn within
us? Didn't it burn within us? While
he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the
Scriptures. If I open the Scriptures and
I tell you what God's Word says, I don't tell you what I think,
what other people ought to think, I tell you what God says. There's
fire coming with that if God the Holy Spirit's in it. And
He'll either consume somebody, burn them up, get them so mad
they'll hop coals, they can't stand it, they've got to leave.
Or He's going to burn them in the heart. And I say, oh, my
heart's warm. Didn't it burn within us? Jeremiah
said with that message that he was given, he said, I'm not going
to make a message to him. I'm not going to speak his name
anymore. I'm quitting preaching. Just like Peter, I'm hanging
it up, going fishing. This ain't profitable. But his word is in
my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I was weary
with forbearing and I could not stand against it. I couldn't
stay. That burns inside of my bones. I go into a gas station and I
get something. I ain't preaching to everybody in there. I'm in
there to get something and get out there. Go get a haircut.
I want my hair cut. I ain't there to preach. But
boy, if somebody starts blaspheming God, lying on the Lord that I
love, that burns inside of my bones. There's a heat there. Jeremiah also said, Jeremiah
23, is not my word, the Lord told Jeremiah, is not my word
like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh
the rock in pieces. What was it that first burned
you in the heart? The word of the Lord. He spoke
it. He speak to your heart, give
you a new heart, burned it. Natural man attempts to produce
some kind of saving warmth on their own. By their own hands.
And Elijah says, don't you put any fire underneath it. And let's
see if your God has any fire. And any just punishment of sin.
Any burning salvation. But don't you touch it. Don't
put your hand to it. You take whatever your thoughts
of God are, you take man clean out of the equation and tell
me about his salvation. I thought you were doing something. If
man's dead, What if they're crippled? What if they don't have a mind
in them no more? Take your fire out of them. He says in verse
26, And they took the bullock which was given them, and they
dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even
until noon, and said, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice
nor any answer, and they leaped upon the altar which was made.
This was a circus, hooting and hollering, waving hands off show. It's quiet, isn't it? And it came to pass at noon that
Elijah mocked them. He made fun of them. And he said,
cry aloud for he is a God. Either he's talking, maybe he's
talking to somebody else. He just can't hear you over them. Yell louder. People say God talks
to them. Lord spoke to me. If he didn't
speak to you through the preaching of the gospel, through his word,
through his prophets, he didn't speak to you. Maybe your God's
talking, or maybe He's pursuing. You know what that means? Maybe He's in the bathroom. That
gives a good excuse to anybody, doesn't it? You go look for somebody.
I need to talk to them right now. They're in the restroom.
Oh, I'll wait. Maybe yours is going to the bathroom. Or He's
in a journey. He's off doing something else
because He's not omnipresent. or peradventure, he sleepeth
and must be awakened. Your God sleeps. What does our
God do? What does the God of the Bible
do? Psalm 121 says, He that keepeth Israel will not slumber nor sleep. Ain't you glad? We ain't going
to catch him off duty. We get so discouraged sometimes
that we just don't see the Lord working in a massive amount of
people and we think God's out of business. God saved one person in Southern
California. What a miracle. What a miracle
that would be. Verse 28, and they cried aloud
and cut themselves after the manor with knives and lancets
till the blood gushed out upon them. What did Paul say in Romans
10? He said, I bear them record.
They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Oh,
they put their money where their mouth is. Look around. Look at
church buildings going up all over the place. Big places. Landscaped
and parking lots that cost more than my house. Leaving lights
on in the parking lot all the time. Turning things off, you're
wasting money. They got it to spare, don't they? They put their
money where their mouth is. Have a zeal for God but without
knowledge. There's a true and sincere zeal, a passion, a dedication
by people in false religion. They're worshiping a God that
cannot save. It cannot preserve, it cannot make holy, and that
does not rule and reign. They are sincere, but they're
sincerely wrong. All the hollering, all the outward
show, all the yelling, even their blood, their blood, not the blood
of Christ. They want to shed their own blood.
It ain't going to do nothing. No fire, no warmth, and more
importantly, that sacrifice they have ain't accepted by God. That's
what we need to get a hold of. Sacrifice is not acceptance.
Only silence. What a terrible thought. Silence
from God. What do you say? Let Him alone.
Let Him alone. God turning His back on them.
Verse 29, And it came to pass, when midday was passed, that
they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening
sacrifice, and there was neither voice nor any to answer, nor
any that regarded. God didn't give them warmth.
He didn't give them peace. He did not give them assurance.
He only gave them silence to a false worship. Verse 30, And
Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the
people came near unto him, and he repaired the altar of the
Lord that was broken down." And all this hooting, hollering,
and carrying on, they were trampling around like a bunch of wild bulls,
and they knocked down the altar. And he said, that's alright,
I'll put it back. Verse 31, and Elijah took twelve stones, according
to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom
the word of the Lord came. saying, Israel shall be thy name. Those 12 stones, God's people,
His chosen, His elect, His spiritual Israel, put in Christ before
the foundation of the world, they're not shapened. They're raw stones,
untouched material. And man's hands and man's tools
and man's rules did not make them usable. The whip of the
law didn't make those stones usable. And they're called Israel,
because they're God's workmanship. Israel shall be thy name. Aren't
you glad it's not called Jacob? That's what we are, isn't it? That's what we'll admit to, we'll
confess, that's all I am, a deceiver, supplanter. But he calls his
people Israel, God's chosen people. How did we get that way? How
did we get that way? Look at 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 measures of seed. When God
calls out His people, He makes a stony heart living flesh. We are made an altar in His name,
in Christ. That's how we're made. In His
name. And there's a trench about us.
There's a trench about us. There's a great gulf that separates
us. That rich man that died, he was
begging Abraham, send somebody back. Send Lazarus back. Go talk
to my family. What did Abraham say? And beside
all this, everything he'd listed, between us and you, there's a
great gulf fixed. Big trench. All of this being put in Christ,
being given His name, being accepted to the Father, it was on full
display at Calvary. That's where it took place. That's
where it transpired, at Calvary. Look here in verse 33. And He
put the wood in order. How did He stack it? I don't
know. Somebody says they know, they
don't know. Maybe He shaped it like a cross. The cross of Christ
was built, wasn't it? It was put in order. He put the
wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces and laid Him on the
wood. The cross of Christ was put in
order and our Redeemer was laid on the wood as our sacrifice. That is where you and I, the
sons of Jacob, the elect people, were laid. That's where His stones
were, wasn't it? in His name, one with Him. And that's where all of our justification
and all of our sanctification and all of our redemptions found
in Him, in Christ, in Him crucified. It says in verse 33, And He put
the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces and laid him
on the wood and said, Fill four barrels with water and pour it
on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. You douse it. Everybody
knows there ain't no fire underneath it. And he said, do it a second
time. 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 round about the altar, and he filled the
trench also with water. Three times, they took four barrels. Last time I went to school, that
was 12. Three times four is 12, isn't it? One for each stone. And there was an abundance to
fill the trench round about it, to fill that gulf of washing. Here's this, these stones they
took, they made an altar. On top of that altar is the wood.
On top of that altar is the sacrifice. When that bullock's cut up, those
stones are covered in blood. Ain't they? Blood all over them. Their colors change. They're
different. They absorb the blood. And then now there's water. A
whole barrel for every stone. So much so, it filled the trench
around it. The washing of regeneration.
Being made holy. Remission of sins in the blood,
being made holy by the water. And you know, this is three years
of drought. Where'd they get that water from? That's a lot
of water, isn't it? Mount Carmel is pretty close to the ocean,
to the sea there. A lot of commentators today just
went right there to the sea and filled up the barrels. Twelve
barrels out of the sea, you think you can tell the difference?
What's the mercies of God? What's His forgiveness? Endless.
He saves to the utmost, doesn't He? Verse 36, And it came to
pass at the time of the offering, at the appointed time, Elijah
was waiting on the Lord, of the evening sacrifice that Elijah
the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and
of Israel, He didn't say Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, did he? Abraham,
Isaac, and Israel. This work's already done. Let
it be known this day that thou art God and Israel, that's primary,
and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things
at thy word. Where did Elijah come up with
this? He's just boastful. I've got a good idea. The Lord
told him, didn't He? He told His prophet what to do.
Verse 37, Hear me, O Lord, hear me. that this people may know
that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart
back again. Lord, give Yourself the glory."
There's no jumping there, is there? Very short prayer. No
jumping, no carrying on, no flattery, no waving of hands, no cutting
themselves. Sixty-three words. Sixty-three
words. What was the response to that?
Of God's sent prophet. His man. Verse 38, Then the fire
of the Lord fell, and it consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the
wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water
that was in the trench. It burnt everything. Everything. That sacrifice was accepted to
God because it was burnt. That cross, that wood that was
fashioned together, was accepted to the Lord. And underneath that
What's between us and God? That's altars. That's twelve
stones. Christ and Him crucified is between us and the Lord, isn't
it? Underneath that, we died with Him. We rose with Him. We were made one with Him. He
was accepted. We are accepted in Him. Not of
our own. In Him. And it burned up the
dust, too. This world is going away. Christ
is coming in judgment, isn't He? Verse 39, And when all the people
saw it, they fell down on their faces, and they said, The Lord,
He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. And
Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal. All these that
just bowed down and said, The Lord is the God. You take them.
Let not one of them escape. And they took them, and Elijah
brought them down to the brook of Kishon and slew them there. Why were
they killed? Didn't they just bow and say, The Lord is the
God? The devil knows that, don't he? There's one God. All those
lesions that was cast into them swine, they said, is this the
time? You're Him. They knew that was God, didn't they? That ought
to perk us up. They said, You're the God, not
my God. That was the God, not their God.
Oh Lord, my God. What did Thomas say whenever
he touched His side? He said, My Lord and my God. You are my
God, but you are my Lord. You rule in rain and everything.
I willfully in joy and love submit to you." That was a forceful
submission. That's the boss. That's the one
that's most powerful. We ain't got no choice. So that
killed him. There in verse 1, it says,
"...show thyself unto Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth."
Remember, Elijah was speaking with Ahab when all this begun.
And that's how it ends too, isn't it? 850 people died. A whole day took
place. God had a miracle. Rain fire
from above declaring what sacrifice he would deem acceptable for Ahab to be preached to. Look here in verse 41, And Elijah
said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a
sound of abundance of rain. What's the sound of abundance
rain? He said, Ahab, you get up, eat and drink, dust yourself
off, get ready to work. I can hear thunderclouds coming.
Ain't rained in three years. You can hear it over the hill.
It's on its way. The Lord's going to replenish
this earth for every king. If I get you one-on-one, talk
to you. Good looking eye. You kings, you queens, every
king, how long will you halt between two opinions? The verdict is the cross. That's
where God's verdict come down, wasn't it? That's where God's lamb was consumed.
Those stones built in His name were consumed too. They were
covered in the blood, they were made pure in that water that
was provided, and they were accepted by the Father. God's verdict's
been issued. Salvation's of the Lord. His
verdict's been issued. Christ has all preeminence in
all things. That's plain, isn't it? What's
your verdict? How long will you halt between
two opinions? Get up. Eat. Drink. Rain's coming. Rain's coming. Alright, let's
pray.