Word of Salvation – Vol.50 No.27 – July 2005

 

The Lord is God

 

A Sermon by Rev R. Adams on 1 Kings 18:19-41

 Scripture Readings: 1 Kings 16:29-34

Suggested Hymns: PsH 181; 7; 281; 150; 488 BoW 157; 34a; 25; 135; 78a; 532

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ…

In this story from the First Book of Kings, we meet two men: Elijah and Ahab. Ahab was the seventh king of the northern kingdom of Israel.

Ahab was a contemporary of Asa and Jehoshaphat, kings of Judah round about 850 BC. Importantly for our purposes, the Bible says of this Ahab that he was worse in leading his people into sinful practices than all the kings before him (1 Kings 16:30).

Then we have Elijah… an important prophet in those times. We first meet him in 1 Kings 17:1, “Now Elijah the Tishbite… said to Ahab, ‘As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word’.”

And so, for three years, the land suffered from a severe drought. And since King Ahab blamed Elijah for the drought, rather than God… the prophet had to hide away. For a time God supplied food and water… but even Elijah had to find out… if you pray for a drought, you’d better be prepared to suffer a drought. And so his water supply eventually dried up.

Then the Lord sent Elijah away from Israel and Ahab… to Zarephath in Sidon… where a kindly widow fed him from a supply of oil and flour that God continually replenished. And you may remember that the widow’s son died while Elijah was with her… and the Lord restored his life when

Elijah prayed for him.

Unlike Ahab, Scripture remembers Elijah as a godly man… a man of prayer… who trusted God explicitly. As we read in the letter of James, “Elijah… prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.” (Jas 5:17-18)

And so 1 Kings 18:1 has it, “… in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.” Elijah didn’t question having to face a king who wanted him dead. In spite of the danger to himself, Elijah obeyed the Lord… and this leads to the Biblical event we deal with today.

The narrative takes us to the top of Mount Carmel… overlooking the sea. Our Bible tells us it was a clear, sunny, day. And Elijah is addressing a large crowd. You can sense a confrontation building.

Before the day is out, it will develop into a contest between God’s prophet… and 400 odd prophets of the Canaanite ‘god,’ Baal. But the real confrontation is happening below the surface… in the hearts and minds of people in the crowd. They have to settle a deep personal issue, once and for all. So Elijah says to them, “‘How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.’ But the people said nothing” (1 Kings 18:21).

I think they knew they were supposed to be God’s people. But they also lived among Canaanite neighbours. And as so often is the case when the Lord’s people live among unbelievers, we pick up some bad habits from our neighbours. In the case of Elijah’s contemporaries, you can call it what you will, but it smacks of taking out some extra insurance for life and property… down at the local office of Baal. Sort of like an ‘eachway’ bet at the race track, if you like. Except that their insurance policy seems to have failed them. Baal seems to have let the folks down. He was supposed to be the God of thunder and rain… and here is their land in ruin precisely because of a lack of rain.

And so you can understand that folks aren’t feeling too chipper up on that mountain-top. They have a real live issue to deal with. And fiery old Elijah… his name means “The Lord is God”… he confronts them with the historic faith of Israel… there is only one God… and all others… including thunderous Baal… are figments of the imagination.

We Christians inherit the faith of old Israel. We, too, are called to worship God and to reject idols. And of course that brings us into conflict with a popular philosophy in our day. Call it a ‘god’ because that’s what it amounts to in peoples’ minds.

Most people around us share a common belief that we have to tolerate all kinds of beliefs… never mind if the different beliefs contradict each other. This common belief goes by the fancy name of ‘pluralism’… and it says that you can believe whatever you like… except that you must not believe that the beliefs of others are wrong. For instance, you can believe one thing about God… I can believe something totally different… but you can’t insist that your belief is right and mine is wrong. Because that would be IN-tolerant. And ‘pluralism’ hates intolerance. The one and only belief ‘pluralism’ won’t tolerate is the belief that refuses to tolerate other beliefs.

‘Pluralism’ grows out of the idea that there’s no such thing as absolute truth. That is to say, something can be true for you, but it may not be true for me. I’ll decide for myself what is true for me. It’s all very subjective, but it’s what most people around us today believe. Most people believe there’s a ‘god’ of some kind… but they also believe there are many roads to ‘god.’ The only trouble is, their idea of ‘god’ is so vague, they can’t see the difference between the one God of Christianity

and the one ‘god’ of Islam. Or for that matter between one ‘god’ and the 300 million ‘gods of the Hindus.’

And this is where the conflict between Christianity and pluralistic society surfaces. We Christians have to reject the idea that all religions are the same. Scripture clearly says that “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12)

A little boy was asked, “How many Gods are there?” He replied, “There’s only one!” Then he was asked, “How do you know?” And he answered, “Because there’s only room for one!” We are called to recognise that salvation is offered only through one Jesus Christ… and not through any other means… be it person or religion or whatever.

Every other so-called ‘god’… every human philosophy and religion on this planet… is a false ‘god.’ Because we hold this view of other ‘gods,’ you and I will be considered exclusivist and intolerant by our pluralistic society.

Yet our Lord Jesus didn’t believe in ‘many roads to God.’ And neither did Elijah. He challenged Israel to stand for God alone. Ahab on the other hand, was worshipping Jezebel’s false ‘god’… and he encouraged his people to do the same. For them it was a sort of ‘each-way bet.’

Ahab wanted Baal to answer any prayers that God refused… and vice versa. But this story shows that false gods like Baal can’t answer any prayers at all. And so the stage is set for a showdown.

Ahab has gathered the people on Mount Carmel… along with Jezebel’s cronies… the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah (vs 19). Now God is waiting! “How long will you waver?” asks the prophet.

There’s a lesson here for us. It could easily be us on the mountain-top. We, too, need to be reminded that our false prophets and our empty idols are bound to fail us as well. So the question keeps on coming back to us: when are YOU going to stop wavering between ‘gods’?

Well, we can’t finish today without knowing how the story ends. Baal was supposed to be the god of thunder and lightning and rain… so the drought and famine in Israel were a huge embarrassment for Baal worshippers. It seemed that Elijah and his God rather than Baal might be in control of Israel’s fortunes. So the prophets of Baal jumped at the chance to vindicate their ‘god’ before the people.

From nine in the morning until noon, Baal’s prophets prayed for fire to burn up their offering. From nine am to three pm… they pranced around… and shouted… and cut themselves… all to attract Baal’s attention. And all the while… at the risk of being considered ‘intolerant’… Elijah poked fun at them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy (literally ‘on the toilet’) or travelling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened” (vs 27). But there was no fire in the camp.

At the time of the evening sacrifice… to give Baal a fighting chance… Elijah has people pour water over the Lord’s altar… until it is thoroughly soaked. Then, without a lot of commotion… Elijah simply prayed to his God. “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, let it be known in Israel 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” (vs 36).

“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” (vs 38).

“When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, ‘The Lord – he is God! The Lord – he is God!'” (vs 39)

Long before, Joshua had confronted the ancestors of these people when he said, “Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods… your fathers served… beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:14).

Jesus Christ challenges us in the same way. For example, in Matthew 6: “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Mt 6:24). We, too, must serve the Lord, and put away any other ‘gods’… whether they be wrong ideas of who God is… or the worship of money and prestige… or anything else that has become an idol in our lives.

Elijah was no ‘superman’… he was simply obedient to the Lord. We, too, must obey God’s Word, just as Elijah did. Specifically for us… Jesus Christ is the very Word of God incarnate, and we have to believe and obey what He says. Will you believe Jesus today, when he says, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.”

In the name of Jesus…

Amen.