1 Kings chapter 18 and verse
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. Then said Elijah unto the people,
I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets
are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two
bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and
cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And I will dress the other bullock,
and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And call ye on the
name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord.
And the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all
the people answered and said, It is well spoken. And Elijah
said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bulwuk for yourselves,
and dress it first, for ye are many. And call on the name of
your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bulwuk which
was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of
Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any
that answered, and they leapt upon the altar which was made.
And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them and said,
Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is talking, or he is
pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and
must be awaked. And they cried aloud and cut
themselves after their manor with knives and lancets, till
the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday
was passed, and they prophesied until the time of the offering
of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice nor any
to answer, nor any that regarded. 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 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. 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.
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. And he said, Do it the second
time. And they did it the second time.
And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third
time. And the water ran round about
the altar, and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet
came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that
I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy
word. 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. Then the fire of the Lord
fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and
the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was
in the trench. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their faces, and they said, the Lord, He is the
God, the Lord, He is the God. Elijah said unto them take the
prophets of Baal let none let not one of them escape and they
took them and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon
and slew them there amen May the Lord bless to us that reading
from his word. I thought it appropriate. I thought
it wise to bring that whole narrative together. So a little bit of
a longer reading today, but I hope you enjoyed reading that passage
together. Today's incident from the life
of Elijah is perhaps his most well known. Let me reminisce
a little bit. As a boy, I always liked making
fires. I knew how hard, if not impossible,
it is to light a fire with wet wood. And this miracle from Elijah's
life always seemed the more amazing because of all the wet wood And
I also used to wonder where all the water came from during this
time of drought so that he was able to put these 12 barrels
of water onto the top of his sacrifice. Let's come to that
a little bit later. Elijah had confronted wicked
Ahab, the king, three and a half years into this drought. which had been sent by God to
discipline Israel for their idolatry and for their Baal worship. And Elijah challenged the prophets
of Baal to demonstrate the power of their God at Mount Carmel
before the leaders of the 10 tribes of Israel. When all had gathered, The Lord's
prophet proposed the terms and challenged the people no longer
to sit on the fence, but to choose decidedly whether to follow God
or Baal. He says, if the Lord be God,
follow him, but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered,
not a word. Here's something I want to say
to you right at the very beginning. Don't pretend to be a follower
of the Lord. The Lord hates that. If you are
a follower, then follow him actively and follow him boldly. If not,
be honest with yourself and be honest with those around you. Don't be like these people. They
were silent. They just said nothing. Maybe
they were ashamed. Maybe they were afraid. Or maybe
they were just uncertain about what was going on. Here is King
Ahab. Here are 450 prophets against
one man, God's prophet. Maybe it just seemed wisest for
the people to say nothing until this day's events were settled. But make no mistake. Though it
is not stated for us in as many words, this was a battle to the
death. There's no way that Elijah was
going to leave the field alive if Baal's prophets won. One might wonder why these men
agreed to the contest They had so much power in their hand. They had the support of the king
and the queen, of course. They were scattered throughout
the whole of the 10 tribes, the nation of Israel as it then was. And they were preaching, and
they were going about the business of establishing this Baal worship. Why would they even consider
this challenge with Elijah? except that they wanted water,
they wanted rain. And that was their great hope
that as a result of this, the drought would break and that
rain would come again. I wonder if they actually thought
that their God, Baal, would send down fire. Did they imagine that
they could defeat Elijah because of their superior numbers? Did
they think that they might be able to spin the event and make
it look as though, even in defeat, they had a victory? That's possible. These men spent their lives deceiving
the men and women of Israel, masquerading as the representatives
of the gods. But now they were required to
prove their claims. And Elijah set the conditions.
They were to take a bullock, slay it, and lay it on an altar
to their God. Elijah would do the same. But
no flame was to be put to the wood. The true God would send
his own fire and consume the sacrifice. The people of Israel
agreed to the terms. The God who answered with fire
would be the true God. Elijah insisted that the Baalites
go first. And they likely began very solemnly
doing their little walks and their little incantations and
appearing to be very religious. But as time passed and nothing
happened, they began to shout, they began to rant, they began
to cavort and scream and shout. They threw themselves onto the
altar, they cut themselves until they bled, and nothing happened. Hours into their charade, Elijah
began to goad them. You know, mockery is a very effective
weapon against powerful bullies and frauds. And this is what
Elijah did. After a full day ranting, there
was no fire from heaven. So Elijah took his turn. We're told that he rebuilt an
old altar to the Lord that had fallen into disrepair. And then
he took 12 stones. One for each tribe. Now there
were only 10 tribes in the land of Israel at that time, because
remember what we've been talking about, that the two tribes of
Judah and Benjamin, they had separated and became known as
Judah. But what Elijah was pointing
out here is that both Judah and Israel, the two and the 12, all
should worship the same God. And he took these to indicate
that there should be unity of worship of the one true God. He prepared the sacrifice. But
before he prayed, he did something which must have been a puzzle
to those who were watching. He dug a trench around the altar. And he poured 12 barrels of water
over the sacrifice, over the wood, over the stones, and enough
to fill the trench around about the altar with water. And then
he prayed to the Lord and asked God to send down his fire from
heaven. What faith Elijah displayed here. I imagine that the Lord had told
Elijah what he intended to do, but still the prophet played
his part bravely and fully. His prayer was powerful. Lord
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, or Jacob, that's the same as
Jacob because Jacob had his name changed to Israel. But the Lord
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, let it be known this day that
thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant. and that I
have done all these things, probably he was speaking about everything
that had happened for the past three and a half years, all these
things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou
has turned their heart back again. And we read that when this prayer
was done, The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice
and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up all of
the water that was in the trench. That was pretty comprehensive.
That was complete. And the response of the people
was shock and awe. They fell on their faces. And
they said, the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. It was a rejection of Baal and
Baal worship and these priests of Baal. I don't know if these
people all trusted in the Lord. I rather think they did not.
We'll come to that another time. But they could not deny the power
that they had seen that day. nor Elijah's victory over the
450 prophets of Baal. God's prophet acted at once to
rid Israel of these imposters, these charlatans, these false
prophets. He commanded them to be brought
down to the brook Kishon, which was a little brook that ran off
the mountains there. It ran into the sea and there
He slew all those 450 prophets under the legitimate judicial
sentence of the Mosaic law. He did so because these prophets
had turned the people away from God. And even Ahab the king could
not resist the power of the miracle. the enforcement of the law against
these false prophets, and very likely, the sheer number of people
that acted in accordance with Elijah's instructions. Here are
some lessons that I want us to draw from this narrative today. We have before spoken about Elijah's
faith and here again we see the way the prophet of the Lord acted
and stood firm despite all the enemies ranged against him. As we go through this life, as
you and I go through our lives, if we are believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ, It will appear that we are vastly outnumbered
and indeed weak, 450 plus against Elijah. It will appear that we
are vastly outnumbered and much weaker than those that would
contend against us. I think the Lord keeps it that
way for His people, so that we might trust Him more. Because
if we had lots and lots of people on our side, we would think to
ourselves, we can handle this, we can take these people, we
can win this argument. The truth is, with the Lord on
our side, we need fear nothing and no one. 450 ranting, screaming enemies and
yet Elijah trusted the Lord to demonstrate his power and defend
his servant. and it's a good pattern for us
to follow. Trusting the Lord isn't a head
knowledge of Bible facts. It's not a decision of our will.
It's knowing that we are unworthy of His goodness and His mercy,
but trusting Him for grace and salvation anyway. It's trusting
in the Lord for the things that we need. And we trust Him when
He says, He that believeth on me is not condemned, but hath
everlasting life. The days of the building of altars
and the slaying of animals is past. The day of Old Testament
miracles is gone. But faith is still required of
God's people. And we who believe have a better
sacrifice and trust a firmer promise. when we trust and obey
the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's another little application.
Elijah's altar and the sacrifice speaks to us of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I wonder why Elijah rebuilt the
altar of the Lord that had fallen down. Why take the time and the
trouble to do that? In fact, we might even ask, why
kill another's sacrifice when one was already laid unused on
the altar of the Baalites? Well, of course, the Baalites
would have claimed that Baal had sent that fire if Elijah
had used their altar. But it's more important than
that. The prophet is telling us He's telling us all that there
must be no mixing of true religion with man's false religion. That there must be no mixing
of grace and works by whatever name that might go.
Here it was called Baal worship. But men and women by nature always
tried to rob God of his glory. and to give that glory to someone
or something else. Elijah is showing us that there
is one altar alone that God honors, that there is one sacrifice alone
that he respects and accepts, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ
and his death on the cross. The bullock on the altar of the
Lord was a picture of the sacrifice and death of the Lord Jesus Christ
at Calvary. Because he died, all who trust
in him shall live. We have an altar and a sacrifice
and a deliverer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust him, prove him. He will not let you down. And then thirdly, and with this
we're done, the 12 barrels of water. What about those 12 barrels
of water? Poured on the sacrifice to saturate
the wood and soak the bullock, the stones were dripping wet.
The trench that Elijah had built was filled with water. Where
did all that water come from? Well, maybe there was enough
water in that little brook, Kishon, coming off the mountain still,
even after these three and a half years. Or another solution that
has been suggested is that maybe Elijah had sent a servant in
anticipation of this moment. to the sea, which was only, well,
it was less than 10 miles away. So maybe Elijah had sent someone
to the sea to bring back 12 barrels of seawater. I don't know where
that water came from. Either way, the water did two
things. It intensified the visual effect
of the miracle. It made Elijah's miracle look
amazing. But it also demonstrated the
ease with which the God of Israel can and does accomplish his holy
will. The God in whom we trust is powerful
to save. He is able to deliver and he
is sufficient to overcome every obstacle that we face in our
lives. The fire of the Lord consumed
the sacrifice. Then it consumed the stones of
the altar. It consumed the wood. It consumed
the water. It consumed the dust. It was
fierce. but it was controlled power. You know, that fire could just
have easily darted out from the altar and consumed those standing
around, leaving Elijah alone, unharmed. It could have consumed
the 450 prophets of Baal had God wanted to do that. But that
was not the Lord's purpose. He was ready to be merciful to
Israel, ready to send rain on the land. And our God still delights
to be merciful to His spiritual Israel. Trust Him. His mercy is still extended. His grace is still available. and the way of life is still
open for sinners like us. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today.