Life in The Land of False Idols

So 1 Kings 18, and we're gonna read from verse 16 to 39. You remember last week, Elijah had told Oberdyer to go and tell King Ahab that Elijah was back in town. And so that's where we're picking it up. Obedaya has gone to meet Ahab and he's telling him that Elijah has returned. So Obedaya went to meet Ahab versus 16, and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

When he saw Elijah, he said to him, Is that you, you trouble her of Israel? I have not made trouble for Israel, Elijah replied, but you and your father's family have You have abandoned the Lord's commands and have followed the Bales. Now, some of the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel, and bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, How long will you waiver between 2 opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Bale is God follow him. But the people said nothing. Then Elijah said to them, I I am the only 1 of the Lord's prophets left. But Bale has 450 prophets.

Get 2 bulls for us. Let Bale profits choose 1 for themselves. And let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the lord.

The god who answers by fire, he is God. Then all the people said, what you say is good. Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose 1 of the bulls and prepare it first. Since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your God, but do not like the fire.

So they took the bull that was given to them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Bale from morning until noon. Bale, answer us, they shouted, but there was no response. No 1 answered, and they danced around the altar they had made. At noon, Elijah began to taunt them.

Shout louder, he said, surely he is a god, perhaps he's in deep in thought or busy or he's traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened. So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears as was their custom until their blood flowed. Mid day passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response no 1 answered, no 1 paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, come here to me. They came to him and he repaired the altar of the lord which had been torn down. Elijah took 12 stones, 1 for each of the tribes descended from Jacob to whom the word of the lord had come, saying, your name shall be Israel. With the stones, he built an altar in the name of the lord and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold 2 seers of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the wood into pieces, and laid it on the wood, And then he said to them, fill 4 large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.

Do it again, he said. And they did it again. Do it a third time he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench. At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed.

Lord the 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. Answerce me, Lord. Answer me. So these people will know that you, 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 in the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. Well, we're we're introduced to this amazing event event on on Mount Carmel with a sort of face off basically. It's a bit like those heavyweight boxes that get together before they announce the date of the fight and there's a face off.

And they start calling each other names and stuff like that before the big fight. And that's actually my first point because you'll see this. Look at verse 17. When when he, that's King Ahab. He's the ruler of this nation.

When he saw Elijah, he said to him, is that you you troubler of Israel. Now you've got to remember that King Ahab had 3 and a half years of pent up anger towards Elijah. He had been searching for Elijah and his track and trace just failed. He couldn't find Elijah at all. And so when Elijah turns up, he's really pumping, he's really angry.

Because it was Elijah that pronounced this judgment on this nation. And the judgment was simply this. There's going to be a drought. There's gonna be no rain or no dew for for 3 and a half years. And so that's what happened.

And we've had 3 and a half years of drought. The economy would have just been shattered The death rate, perhaps they had daily death rates of those that died of thirst and starvation The economic failure was was obvious to everyone. The leadership King Ahab himself was unable to control even though he probably be talking about, we can control this. He couldn't control it. He and the land was in trouble.

His queen, Queen Jezebel, she put in the most severe sanctions to close down this nation. That anyone that didn't follow Bale was in big trouble particularly if you were a prophet of Yahweh She wanted to shut down the idea that there was any judgment on the land and she had the profits killed. So you got the picture, haven't you? There's this land under judgment, and it's it's in trouble, drought, famine, job loss. Economic disaster going on here.

So King Ahab was blaming Elijah for this trouble. So when he meets him, and it wasn't through track and trace. It was Elijah just revealing himself. When he meets him, he says verse 18 verse 17, When he saw Elijah, he said to him, is that you you trouble of Israel? See the face off?

Now, look at Elijah's response verse 18. I have not made trouble for Israel. Elijah replied, but you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the Lord's commands and have followed the bales. It's not me who's the troublemaker.

It's you. And this judgment is on the land, it's because you've followed these wicked and despicable false God a bail? I mean, the the the disgusting things that Bale was into is horrible. You've broken the law of God. You're the king you should have led people to the word of God, but you've dismissed the word of God and you followed the bail and that's why there's judgment.

You're the problem. But Elijah isn't just here for name calling. He hasn't turned up so that they could have this face off. Only. What Elijah is saying is, look, don't you understand that the trouble in this land for 3 and a half years is because your bail is false.

You haven't learned the lesson, have you? You haven't learned the lesson. You are not in control and stop pretending you are, and your God is not in control. And he cannot solve the problem of judgment on this land. So let's have a showdown.

Let's have a showdown on Mount Carmel. Let's solve this issue. Let's see who is the troublemaker. Is it me or you? Let's see which God can deal with this this judgment on our land.

So that leads me to the second point. The battle then is proposed and announced look at verse 19. Now, summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel, and bring the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. See, these are the prophets, Jezebel, the whole government system is into this bail system. But what I want you to see here is that this proposal and this announcement is ever so clear.

He's as clear as a bell on the issue here. He's he's spelling out the issue very very clearly. Which God should we listen to Who is the troublemaker of Israel and who can deal with this judgment upon the land? It's very, very clear. He's not some compromiser.

He's not like some modern archbishop of Canterbury that will just waffle around and make compromises. He doesn't compromise Elijah. Look at verse 21. Elijah went before the people and said, how long will you waiver between 2 opinions? No compromises, see, it's only 2 opinions.

If the Lord is God, then follow Him. If Bale is God, you follow Him. It's so clear, isn't it? It's no waffle going on here. And yet, these people are wavering.

They're staggering around like a drunk person, and he says there's no room for wet wavering. There's no womb for walking around like a drunk man. You can't have both. Stop pretending you're following both. It's bail or God, it's your way or bail.

Which 1 are you gonna go for? Who are you gonna trust? Who are you going to listen to? In this word. So I want you to get it that Elijah is very clear on this battle.

There's absolutely he goes for there's no compromise There's no neutral zone. He launches a frontal attack on anyone that's wavering. Yeah. Jesus says this. Same same sort of thing.

No 1 can serve 2 masters. Now, here it, this is the Lord Jesus. No 1 can serve 2 masters. Either you will hate the 1 and love the other or you'll be devoted to 1 and despise the other, you cannot serve both God and money. You can't do that.

Now we've already seen in the on the bale scale. If you are actually trying not to serve Yahway actually you serve bail. So your wavering is a pretense. You're really a bail follower. Yeah?

And but notice the people, I think verse 21 is just quite funny. Notice the people they want to waver Look verse 20 21. Elijah went before his people and said, how long will you waiver between 2 opinions? If the Lord is God follow him, if Bailey's God follow him, but the people said nothing. I want to waver.

I want to waver. I want to stagger I don't know. So Elijah says, okay, I'm gonna force the issue. I love this blow. I'm gonna force the issue I want to show you so clearly the difference between Bayal and Yahweh that you'll be able to make a choice and I'm gonna ask you to make a choice.

Which 1 are you gonna follow after I've forced the issue? Now King Ahab was very happy about that. It says in verse 20 that Ahab sent word throughout Israel and assemble the prophets on Mount Carmel. So we now have the contest. Put out in detail, and you can see that in verse 22 and 24.

Let me read it. Then Elijah said to them, I am the only 1 of the Lord's prophets left, but Bale has 450 prophets. Get 2 bulls for us, Let bales profits choose the 1 for themselves and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but do not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood, but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your God and I will call on the name of the Lord, the God who answers by fire he is God.

And then you've got this line, then all the people said, what you say is good. So the non committal people wanna waver say, you know, actually, this is pretty this is pretty cool. We'll be able to we'll be able to actually make a very clear decision which one's God. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's quite good. I might follow bail at the end of this. I might fail your way at the end of this, but this is this is good. So that's the contest. Very clear.

Which leads me to my third point. The team, meet the teams, meet the teams. First of all, team bail or team Ahab, team Bail or team Ahab, however you wanna call them. You've gotta get a few things about this team. Okay?

And I want you to get this picture The first thing is they have home advantage as a team. The contest is going to be on Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel has been called the mountain of Baal. So this is this is home this is home ground for Bale. Yeah?

Plus, it's up a mountain. And Bale is supposed to be the God of rain and lightning and lightning happens more up a mountain than anywhere else. And also, Mount Carmel is in a hot place and it's near the sea, so there's opportunity for more lightning flashes to go on. So it's home ground. Second thing about team team bail is that it's a massive team.

It's got 450 prophets of bail, and then this is almost like the reserve team just in case some of them, you know, need substituting. You've got you've got 400 prophets of Asherah, or maybe they're not the reserved thing. Maybe they're the cheerleader girls. You know, like you get at those American football games where all the girls come out and they're all bouncing up and down. There's certainly gonna be a load of dance and a whole load of noise and a whole load of drama and maybe maybe that's what the the profits of Asherah are there for.

So you've got massive team, you've got home advantage, but then the team are chosen from all over the land. Verse 20 says, so ahab sent word throughout Israel and assembled the profits on Mount Carmel. This is this is the national team. This is the best of all the local teams. This is together.

This is the best 1, you know, your best scorers are coming in here. Then trying to tell you about what how advantages they got. They win the toss or actually Elijah says you go first. And you can choose the bull as well. You see that in verse 25.

So depending on which games you relate to, do you see what's going on here? They win the toss, They have first innings, they serve first, they take the side, they bat it first, they kick off first, and they have an all day innings. That's Team Bale. Team Ahab. Do you get it?

It's set up like that. Now let's focus in and pan in. So if they come through the tunnel, 850 prophets, and let's see who comes to the tunnel from this team. It's team Yahweh or team Elijah and what have you got? 1 solitary man, probably pretty hungry as well.

He only had a sandwich for a load of years, 1 man, Elijah surrounded by people that wanted to rest him and kill him. Surrounded by an enemy. 1 man, so the odds are 850 to 1 against him. See that? He has no fans, he has no supporters, he's not on home ground, so he doesn't have that advantage.

And even his equipment for this battle has been sabotaged. We're told that the that the altar had been torn down deliberately torn down, his altar. Yeah? So and then Elijah seems to make things it's like he's like a weirdo here because he seems to want to make things harder. He gets water probably from the Mediterranean Sea, poured over his wood pile, his altar 3 times so that there's a trench that's that keeps the water because there's so much water being saturated.

And you say, is he working for team bale? Or he's got 1 of these well, if I'm gonna lose I'm gonna lose badly sort of attitude, what what's going on here? So do you see the teams then? 450 plus 400 to 1 man. Put your money on bail.

Yeah? Put your money on bail. Unless you're elijah and you realize that 1 man plus yahweh actually equals the majority, which leads me to my fourth point. Trying to shut the scene here. The call, the call.

Team Bale, call to their God. Look at verse 26, the second half of verse 26, then they called on the name of bail from morning till noon. They've got a long innings, and they go on further from that. Now notice the noise. We'll read it in just a minute, but notice the noise they generate is a lot of noise going on.

And at first, this calling might have been quite dignified, perhaps sort of religiously worship y sort of stuff. And they're just sort of nicely calling on the name of their bail. But it starts getting ridiculous. And they start dancing all over the place, the cheerleader girls are all coming out and doing a dance, like, you know, Moulon Rouge or something. Like wiggling themselves all over the place.

And it gets so stupid that poor old Elijah just can't help giving some crude jokes. Bail, answer us, they shouted, but there was no response, no 1 answered, and they danced around the altar that they had made. At noon, Elijah began to taunt them. He me it says mock them. Mock them and taunt them.

Shout louder. He said surely he's got. Perhaps he's deep in thought or busy or traveling and maybe he's sleeping and must be awakened. 1 Hebrew scholar suggests that this taunting in Hebrew really means he's Elijah is saying Has he stepped into the celestial men's room? In other words, he's gonna have a wee wee.

He's having a little wee wee. He's so busy, then it turns from something that is rather crude, and and mocking, and all this dancing, to frenzy, violent, ugly stuff. Look at verse 28. So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears as was their custom until their blood flowed. Mid they passed and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice, but there was no response, no 1 answered, no 1 paid attention.

You see the frenzy going on here? You see the south horn that's going on here? This is the madness of the crowd. Drugged up, frenzied, chanting, religious prophecies that word frantic prophesying probably carries with it to sort of gobbledy goop that they're shouting to God in some kind of tongue. They're shouting there as they mutilate themselves and they're groaning.

The false God is doing them harm as they self harm. By the way, this is a very important thing. They've built this altar with a sacrifice on and yet they don't think about that sacrifice at all. They're totally taken up with themselves, if you notice that. In fact, they become the sacrifice.

They shed their blood. They're worked up. It's like their God needs them to do stuff to themselves before he'll listen to them. You see we're getting a picture of what Bale is really like. Bale takes.

Bale takes. He destroys. He causes people to self harm. That's what Bale does. But there's a thing that's even stronger than that women see.

Even after all that devotion of self harm and destruction and frenzy, There is not an answer. There's no answer. Bale doesn't say anything. The noise of the prophets of bail is contrasted with the silence of the bail. That's what you're meant to see.

Look at verse 26 and verse 29. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon bail answer us they shouted, but there was no response. No 1 answered. First 29, but there was no response, no 1 answered, no 1 paid attention. The awful noise of their frenzy religious self harm is sort of deafened by the silence.

I wanna say that Bales and false prophets and false gods are always like this, they take. They maim, they destroy, but they're blind deaf and dumb. Look at this psalm. This is Psalm a hundred and 15. It's just part of it.

This is what the writer says. Our God is in heaven and he does whatever he pleases. We're gonna see what Yahway pleases to do in a minute, and it's so different to bale. But their idols, these are the bales, Their idles are silver and gold made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.

They have ears, but cannot hear noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. Nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Listen to verse 8. Those who make them will be like them.

So that so so will all who trust in them. Those who make them will be like them and so will all those who trust in them. In other words, you are what you worship. You become what you worship. Whatever you worship in 1 sense you'll become like it, And these bales, these priests with their what seemed like endless noise, In the end, I'll shut up and have nothing to say because their God has nothing to say.

So Elijah says in verse 24, you call on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord, the god who answers by fire, he is God. There's no answer, no answer. The trouble can't stop, He's not in control. The land is still under judgment. There is no answer.

But let's have a look at team Elijah. Who calls on Yairway. Now look, it couldn't be more different, and you're meant to get this. I mean, I just haven't got time to really sort of I wish I had time on this to to just the the massive difference. Elijah just calmly petitions God.

It's totally different. But the first thing he does is he repairs down this torn temp this torn altar And that in itself tells us masses about the difference between yahweh and Baal. This was a torn down altar. This was people saying, well, we're pretending to waver but I would rather listen to bail and we can tear down the altar to your way. Your way could have said this.

I'm the god that will answer by fire. I'll send fire on all of you. He could've? You so hate me. You've torn down my altar and you've raised up altars to bail, then I have every right to hand you over to that false god with that self harm and destruction.

But Elijah rebuilds the altar. Because when the fire falls, you want the fire to fall on a sacrifice, don't you? So he builds up the altar. But just look how he builds it up, again, this massive of stuff here. It's so annoying, but it's marvelous.

Look at verse 31. Elijah took this is in building up the altar, took 12 stones. Why? Well, each 1 of each for the tribes and descendants of Jacob. 12 stones, 12 names, 12 family names.

This is the covenant God that's committed to people that he knows. 12 now there's so much in this. You see, you don't have to shout out to God. God, over here, up here, up here. Oh, listen to us.

This God say, I know your name. I know your name. I'm going to sacrifice for you. You don't sacrifice for me? He knows the names.

A minute says, your name shall be Israel. Again, that just reminds us of a story that I've no time to tell you of Jacob who had this encounter with with God It hurt him. It was a painful encounter. He put his hip out, but he had this encounter with God, this personal encounter with God and the name was changed to Israel from from Jacob. So what we've got here is Elijah building up an altar that had been torn down, but it's grace to allow it to be built up.

We've got a personal relational, intimate covenant God who knows his people and has experiences with his people altogether different, isn't it? Then bail? And it's here that you see that Elijah just wants to rub in how big God is by pouring water 3 times over the sacrifice. But hold it. Just before we move on, Elijah's prayer is short and simple.

Listen to the tone of it. I'm gonna read it in a minute, but it's short. There's no screaming There's no shouting. There's no forensic cultic dance going on. There's no empty repetition of the same words for hour upon hour.

It's plain, it's simple. It's just like Jesus said when you pray, say our father, don't be like the pagans beat themselves and repeat their words endlessly. It's gentle. It's to the point and look at the motivation of the prayer Here's the prayer. Look verse 36.

At at that time of sacrifice, just underline that those little those words there because we come back to that at that time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed. What? Do you wanna time this prayer? Remember they spent all day whipping themselves up. Let's see how long this prayer is.

You ready? Lord, the 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. Lord, answer me.

So these people will know that you are lord, that you lord are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again. It's a pretty short prayer now. But it's wonderful, isn't it? The motivation is you're the personal God, Abraham, Isaachan Israel. You're the personal god.

Yeah. But you're the god that wants to bring these people back from stupid baal worship. You're the God that wants to to bring their hearts, that you're a heart God, and it's just a gentle, unfriended prayer. Of truth based on the bible. But just did you notice that?

Do you see those words? At the time of sacrifice in verse 36. You get that repeated in verse 30 where it says, at the evening sacrifice. Now, what's that talking about? It's the sacrifice that is happening in the temple in Jerusalem.

So we know that Elijah is connecting this sacrifice to the temple sacrifice. And what happens in the temple? The sacrifice in the temple, fire comes upon it. It's burnt. Why?

Why? It's burnt because God's judgment is on that instead of me. And so when this fire falls, the God who speaks with fire, I don't want the fire of God to fall on me I want it to fall on the sacrifice. That's what he's linking it up with. He's not just interested in fire He's interested in the fire falling on the sacrifice to stop the judgment on the nation.

And that, of course, is what happens. Verse 38, then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, Lord. He is God, the Lord, he is God, and what a different God to bail. Do you see the difference?

1 is all of God taking up and licking up all his own judgment. And the other is just beating yourself up and cutting yourself. To try to appease that God. So let's just do some lessons. There are loads of lessons here, and I've So hinted at some, but let's just do this.

Here's a question I want to ask you. And you've got to answer this properly. In this age, in this world that we're in, in this time that we're in right now where there's all kinds of economic disasters going on, where our leaders say they're in control and clearly are not. So obvious they're not, isn't it? It's been worth people humbling themselves and saying, we're not in control.

Will you follow Bale or will you follow your way? Bale is a deaf, dumb and blind god. Bail will always take from you. He'll take from you. He'll take from you.

The reason why we give to him is that he's so glitzy and the majority seem to follow him. And he has all the power at his disposal. Think about the little bail stick that every 1 of us has probably got in our pocket. The thing called the phone. There are thousands of people every night committed to keeping you looking at that phone and wasting your time.

Think about the amount of words of bail in our society. Word after word after word and noise and glitz and promises. And then at the end of the day, you've wasted your day. At the end of the day, you don't feel whole. At the end of the day, you're empty.

There's no word at the end of the day in a sense that really fills you up. But bale is speaking and glitzy and dancing and the asura girls are coming out and it's it's so are you gonna listen to that or you're gonna listen to the simple voice of God? That's what I'm asking. Think about our culture and the clatter of noise. Think about the words that go around COVID.

I mean, how many times have you how many times a day do we hear COVID? I mean, I started using it now like a greeting. COVID, Because because he got it's oh, it's COVID, like, I said, COVID. COVID. Everything.

The news is it's just you can't get away from this ridiculous word. Yeah? And who has power over it? Think about the words and the noise of your life, your heartbeat. All the noise of your heartbeat.

The cars, the jobs, the money, the the holidays, the family times, and yet, when death comes, what word have they got? I'm reading a book on the body at the moment. I'm just absolutely loving it. And it tells you not only the bit about the bits of your body. It tells you about the history of surgeons and things that did weird things to themselves to discover how your heart works for instance.

I mean, there is some gruesome stuff in it, but it's interesting. This 1 surgeon who was who who who who lived a couple of centuries ago, he he was he was really big on the and he discovered a lot of things about the heart that we know today. He was feeling his own pulse. Yeah? And do you know what his last word was while he was feeling his own pulse?

This was this was a surgeon. Do you know what his last word was? Can you guess? Stop. It's it's just so good, isn't it?

I mean, what a last word? And that's it? No last word. What's the what's the word in your life for your death? Is it just all the bales will stop all the mobile phones, all the apps, all of the words, all of the job words gone.

Look at this. When Jesus I have no time to read it all, but when Jesus goes to the home of a synagogue leader, there's a dead girl in there. And he asked this question. He saw all of the commotion and the crying and the wailing. And he says, why all this commotion and wailing?

See? Wailing and crying is a bit like bail, isn't it? But Jesus doesn't wail and cry. He says to this little dead girl to Liza Kuhn. Little girl come alive.

See, who do you want speaking into your death? Whether it's by COVID or whatever. Do you want bail? Stop. Or do you want the Jesus of the resurrection and the life who can speak into death.

So who are you going to follow? Oh, here's another application. The single man surrounded by enemies on a mount Mount Carmel. What does that remind you of? Does that remind you of anything?

Does it remind you of another single man Another single man that is actually gonna take the judgment for us, the fire of God, for the sins of disobeying the laws of God. Isn't that our God? Isn't that our God? That he'll suck up all the judgment for the sins that we've ever done. What an extraordinary God compared to bail?

All the noise, all the promises stopped. Of course, at this time in Mount Carmel, the blessing comes, but that's next week. When the judgment is taken on the sacrifice for you, the blessings come, the rains come. Jesus is on the cross. Who do you want to follow?

Who are you going to listen to? Bale with his false promises, or this 1 who dies for you. So what are we going to do? Are we going to follow bail, the majority with all the noise? Are we going to be carried away with social contagion, as they call it, you know, all of this stuff that people get followed, you know, they just they just follow along with social contagion, you know, the in thing is this and everybody just follows.

Or are we going to rely on the grace of a God that even though we've offended him will take the judgment for that offense upon himself in that lone man on a cross. Father God, what an amazing thought we can call you father. Thank you. For your utter power in that lone man dying for the sins of the world. Help us to listen and turn to him in Jesus' name, amen.