Our Sermons

Bible Passage: 1 Kings 18:16-45
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  May 10, 2020

Today’s text from 1 Kings 18 looks like the story of an underdog. It’s a story of 450 vs. 1. It’s like one of those moments in the movies where the lone hero is left to fight against a seemingly unstoppable enemy. The Bible loves the story of an underdog, Moses vs. Pharaoh and the Egyptian Army. The shepherd boy David vs. the giant Goliath. Doubting Gideon vs. the Midianite army. Blind Samson vs. the Philistines. Daniel and the lion’s den. We could go on. The Bible is replete with stories of underdogs because our God loves to reveal his strength through apparent weakness. When all the odds are stacked against him, when his people have all the conditions to lose, when we feel the weakest, his power shines the brightest. You see in every case, these Biblical stories look like the tale of an underdog, but in reality, they are simply setting the stage to show us who is the one true God. Today’s account is a perfect example. It’s the story of a grand contest between one prophet, Elijah, and 450 prophets of Baal. I want to talk about four things today. I want to talk about the background of the contest, then the contest itself, then the prayers, and finally the fire and the rain.

The Background of the Contest: So first of all, this is 9th Century Israel, the kingdom divided into two after the rule of Solomon. So we have Judah in the south with the capital of Jerusalem and the temple. And then Israel in the north. And the northern kingdom had just the worst kings. But Ahab is the worst. 1 Kings 21:25 says “There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife.” Ahab married a Sidonian princess Jezebel who was a worshiper of Baal. Her very name is best understood as meaning “Where is the prince?”(Hebrew: אֵיזוֹ בַּעַל), a ritual cry from worship ceremonies in honor of Baal. Ahab, under the influence of Jezebel, institutionalized the worship of Baal in Israel. Baal was the Phonecian God of fertility, he was the God of rain, the God of the storm. They prayed to him for fertility, for good crops and food and other types of fertility which became mixed with all sorts of immoral practices, not limited to temple prostitution and even child sacrifice.

So Elijah was called by God to proclaim a drought. Baal was the God of rain and the Israelites were turning to him. So God says let Baal bring the rain then! Now three years of drought for an agricultural society was like a market crash for us. For three straight years! It’s worse than what the stay at home order means for our economy and then have it last 3 straight years.  And of course, Ahab and the people hate Elijah because of this. And Ahab sends people to kill him. So, and in a bit of God’s love for irony. He sends Elijah to the Sidonians, right the place where Jezebel came from. And there, not in Israel, Elijah finds refuge with a widow and her son. Some amazing things happen there as well, but those will have to wait for another day. But note here that Elijah’s life, although he followed God, was not nice. He has to run from his life, live in isolation in the desert, rely upon a starving widow and her son, he is hated by his own people. In fact, the other prophets of the LORD were killed by Jezebel and the few that are left are hiding in caves. Just another good reminder not to correlate your own personal happiness with your God’s faithfulness. But anyways, Elijah returns after three years under threat of death and proposes a contest. He wants to gather all the prophets of Baal together with him on Mount Carmel for a contest and surprisingly, Ahab agrees. Instead of killing him on the spot, Ahab probably thinks this will be a chance to publicly humiliate and discredit Elijah before killing him. 

The Contest Itself: Can you picture the scene? The spectators have gathered, hundreds if not thousands of Israelites and of course, King Ahab. In front of them stands Elijah and 450 prophets of Baal. Then Elijah said to all the people, “How long will you stagger around on two crutches? If the Lord is God, follow him. If Baal is God, follow him.” But the people did not answer him a single word. The shame is palpable. They had turned their back on the God of their fathers and they knew that God was a jealous God. They knew that he had told them, you shall have no other Gods, but they had been worshipping Baal.

Now, what does this have to do with us? I mean we don’t worship Baal’s, right? We don’t sacrifice on altars. We don’t have fertility cults. We don’t have pagan rituals. You might think, this doesn’t speak to me. But no, sorry, this is all about you. You might think, “Ya, but I’m a Christian, I already follow the LORD. This doesn’t apply to me.” But no, this especially applies to you. In the Bible, there is always a call to follow the true God over other gods. The Bible never says choose between no god and God. It always tells us to choose between gods and the true God. In other words, the Bible assumes that you have a god. In fact, if you don’t think you have other gods competing for your heart, then you don’t know yourself. It’s always a battle between the gods that we worship, whether we’re aware of them or not, and the true God.  

You know that the word “Baal” itself means simply “lord” or “master”. So it could take different forms for different people. Whatever allowed those people to become fertile, to be fruitful, would become what they worshiped. And the Baals would transform over time and according to the region in which they were worshiped. They worshiped the rain. They worshiped sex. They worshiped the sea. They worshipped the sun. All different types of Baals, all different types of gods. Now we might think today, “Oh, those primitive people.” But perhaps they were just more willing to call a spade a spade. To call it what it was, if they truly depended on it, if their deepest desires were focused on something, they called it a god. They didn’t call it a vice, they didn’t call it a guilty pleasure, they didn’t call it an addiction, they didn’t call it ambition or priority, they called them “gods.” Who do you worship? Who do you build altars to? I know people build altars to money. Hours and hours are put together to form this altar. And upon it, they sacrifice their marriage, their kids, their faith. I know people worship the god of sex. They worship on their computers late at night and on their phones. Their temples are online. To this god, they sacrifice their will and their sensitivity. I know people worship the god of family. Children’s wants are placed above God’s laws. Family unity is prioritized over committed faith. When push comes to shove the sacrifice is made for the family, not for the Lord. I know people worship the god of beauty. Men and women spend hours and hours in front of the mirror. They spend copious amounts of money to keep themselves looking as muscular or as beautiful as possible. Scrolling past beautiful shrines on instagram, they sacrifice and work but are never content with their image. 

God has given us many gifts in this life. Money is a gift. Work is a gift. Sex is a gift. Our families are a gift. Athletic ability and musical skill are gifts; so are intelligence and beauty. But when a good gift is exalted over God it can be an idol. What are your gods? Whatever you have in life that rules your heart, that is your god. What are you most concerned about? What do you dream about? As Christians, we need to hear this the most. Elijah went between the people of God and said: “How long will you stagger around on two crutches.” The picture is of someone who leans on one crutch and then puts it down and limps over to a different crutch and then puts it down to limp back to the other crutch. It is a pitiful picture. It is a way of life that leads nowhere. And we do that sometimes. We worship God on Sunday or whenever you worship during quarantine, and then we often limp over to a different crutch during the week. We put away the Bible and focus our attention and our desires on other masters. Elijah is speaking directly to us today. 

The Prayers: How do you know which god you worship? Well, look at your prayer life. We see two prayers in this passage. We see an incredibly long prayer, expressive prayer by the prophets of Baal. A frenzied, dancing prayer. I imagine drums are beating and they begin to cut and beat themselves. Tons of activity and effort, literal blood, sweat, and tears are shed. It is an intense prayer and it lasts from 9:00 am in the morning all the way until 3:00 pm. 6 hours of this! And then we have a short prayer prayed by Elijah, about 25 seconds give-or-take, and immediately fire rains down from heaven. So look at your prayer life. What do I mean?

Those prophets of Baal prayed to impress their gods. Basically it was on them. They needed to do everything so that the fire would come down. Baal was not a friend to them, he was something they needed to manipulate. They needed to say the right things at the right time in the right rhythm to make this god do what they wanted. It’s on me and my performance whether this god will act or not. There is a dance out of joy, but this is not a joyful dance, it is desperate and manipulative. And we also see that they were cutting themselves. It wasn’t like an accidental nose bleed, it was purposeful. These priests were cutting themselves deeply. I read an anthropologist refer to this practice as sympathetic magic, trying to entice fire from wood by spurting blood from their veins. This is how you know if you worship a false god. If he makes you dance. If he makes you bleed. This is what a false god does. You end up so tired and exhausted. You’re the one who bleeds in the story. And yet, you can’t stop dancing. It’s killing you and you can’t stop dancing. Are you dancing for a false god? Does it feel like everything depends on you? Are you the one bleeding?

On the other hand, we hear the prayer of Elijah. During this frenzied prayer of the Baalists, Elijah has been working to repair an ancient altar to the LORD which lay in ruins. And he calls all the people to come around him. And he placed one stone for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. And then, inexplicably, he digs a trench around the altar and commands them to pour water over it.  Now, remember, there was an on-going drought for three years and Elijah is commanding them to pour water, precious water on the sacrifice. I can’t imagine what the dehydrated, parched onlookers must have thought as gallons and gallons of water were poured onto the ground. We tend to cling to earthly sources of security when we do not have enough. How could you ever pour out that water unless you were willing to trust in God’s power to provide? So here we see the people act in repentance turning to God in faith. And then Elijah prays. Go ahead and time this prayer if you want.

 “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things by your word. 37 Answer me, Lord! Answer me so that this people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you are turning their hearts back to you.” That’s it. And immediately fire falls. The priests of Baal prayed for 6 hours, Elijah, about 15 seconds. And just think about this prayer. This prayer is an intimate prayer. He knows this God. This God is his Father. And he is confident that his God will answer, right that’s why he doused it with water. This is a God-centered prayer. Remember Elijah’s life had been very rough. But he doesn’t complain that God hasn’t been fair to him. He prays that God’s name would be made known! That he would be seen as the true God for all people. There is a good place for us to pray for ourselves and our situations, but let’s not neglect to pray for what is most important: that the LORD would be known as the true God in this world, that people would be liberated from idolatry. As Jesus taught us to pray, “Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done…” This is God-centered prayer. May we learn to pray like Elijah.

The Fire and the Rain: Now, the fire. Immediately after Elijah’s prayer: 38 Fire from the Lord fell on the sacrifice and on the wood, the stones, and the dirt. It even licked up the water in the trench. 39 When all the people saw this, they fell on their knees and said, “The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!” This is really where we see the true God at heart. In the fire. God’s people had turned away from him. They had cheated on him with idols. They had sacrificed their children, they had deserted his altars, they had been unfaithful. The fire should have come down on them. But it didn’t. It came down on the sacrifice. This is where we see the true God, in the fire. Because the fire of God’s wrath ought to consume us for the countless ways we have compromised our loyalty to him. But the fire didn’t come down on us. It came down on the sacrifice. It came down of Jesus. He took it in our place, as the sacrificial Lamb. It was his blood that was shed, not ours. And instead of fires hell we receive the rain of God’s grace.

It wasn’t in our verses, but after the fire, it began to rain. The Lord graciously withheld rain in order to demonstrate to Israel that he was the only true God, the only one who could fulfill their needs and the only one who is truly in control. He disciplined them in order to bring them back to him and then he showers them with rain. My friends, we are in a drought of sorts right now during this Coronavirus. Perhaps part of God’s purpose is to strip away some of those crutches which we depend on so that we are graciously forced to depend on him alone for our life and salvation. Let us cling to Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and never turn away from him. For as the people proclaimed, “The Lord—he is God.” 

Amen.