STUDY THEME: QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD. "HOW POWERFUL IS GOD?" 9-17-00

1 KINGS 18: 17-18, 20-21, 24, 30-39

PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO 1 KINGS 18.

There are many great prophets mentioned in the Bible; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Amos, etc. but the one selected by God to represent the prophets at the transfiguration of His Son Jesus was the prophet Elijah.

Just how may we form a right idea of God’s greatness? The Bible teaches us two steps that we must take. The first is to remove from out thoughts of the limits on God that would make Him small. The second is to compare him with powers an forces which we regard great. There are no bounds to His presence; no limits to His knowledge.

If your God is a little god in a box or a book you probably will not believe what happened on Mt. Carmel in the 8th century B.C. You will go away thinking no god is powerful enough to do what Elijah’s God did. You have experienced enough by now to seriously doubt that God is in control of the weather much less the fire from heaven.

Let’s get a little better acquainted with these two characters in our story. The Hebrew king Ahab and his foreign wife Jezebel had led Israel away from the worship of God. They had established a pagan religion named Baalism as the state religion. It was a nature religion and involved sexual immorality so as to cause the land to be more productive. Many people were not sure as to which was the better religion---that of Baal or that of Jehovah. So Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest to see who was the true God. In that contest, God showed His awesome power!

The suggest "Biblical Truth" is that God is able to overcome all obstacles, and He exercises His power to accomplish His good and gracious purposes in the lives of His people and in the world. The suggested "Life Impact" is to help people depend on God’s power for daily living.

Ahab’s father Omri ruled Israel 12 years. Omri was a wicked king and at his death his son Ahab reigned in his place. He established an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal in Samaria. He did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

The prophet Elijah, whose name means "The Lord is God", was sent by God to confront Baalism and to declare to Israel that the Lord was God and there was no other. The Lord had threatened to withhold the rain from the land if His people turned from Him to other Gods. Elijah had prayed for the drought and God answered. The drought proved that Baal, the god of the rains, and fertility, was impotent before the Lord.

After advising King Ahab of the coming drought Elijah was ordered by God to hide and God would command the ravens to bring meat and bread morning and evening that Elijah might eat and drink from the brook Cherith, until the seasonal brook dried up. God then commanded Elijah to go to ZAREPHATH, where he helped and was h helped by a widow and her son.

The first Vs. of 1 Kings 18 has the Lord commanding Elijah to now go to Israel and announce to King Ahab that the Lord would send rain that would break the 3 1/2 year drought.

Meanwhile in Israel Ahab had sent his palace manager Obadiah to search for water. Obadiah( not to be confused with the later prophet by the same name) was a devout believer in the Lord and had hid 100 prophets of the Lord during Jezebel’s slaughter of the prophets.

On his way toe hunt for water, Obadiah met Elijah, who told Obadiah to tell Ahab that he was back in Israel. Obadiah was afraid Elijah would be gone before Ahab saw him, but Elijah assured him he would see Ahab. then Ahab sent out to meet Elijah. Elijah’s confrontations with King Ahab are the classic biblical examples of a true prophet of God confronting and evil leader with his sins.

In Vs. 17 Ahab accused Elijah of being the "troubler of Israel." The three-year drought had caused great suffering in Israel, and Ahab accused Elijah of being the cause of this trouble.

In Vs. 18 the prophet used the same word to make a counter charge; "I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house." Elijah had prayed for the drought because God told him to do so, but the reason was as because Ahab and his father’s house had forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and...followed Baalim.

Elijah was accusing Ahab and Jezebel of doing the real harm to Israel by seeking to replace the worship of the true God with a false god. Their trust in Baal to provide rain and their rejection of the Lord, who alone could give them rain, was the cause of the drought.

Napoleon is supposed to have said, "Providence is always on the side of the last reserve." This is a cynical way of saying that the real power is military, not divine help. People today ignore or reject the Lord, who alone gives real life, and they trust themselves and other things to provide for their needs. This results, not in the good life they expect but ultimately in a drought of real life.

Some people reject the miracles of the Bible, but even more deny that God is at work in their lives or in the world today. Dr. Dean remembered hearing a college student try to explain away God’s power as seen at a Billy Graham Crusade. The student attributed the many decisions to mass psychology. The others in the group had seen what happened and believed God’s power was the explanation. He was typical of many who do not believe in or rely on God’s power.

In Vs. 19 Elijah challenged Ahab to prove the power of his gods. He told the king to gather 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah on Mt. Carmel for a contest that would demonstrate who the true God was. Elijah knew other religions had their prophets. They used all sorts of means to determine the will of the gods and to inform the kings and people of the god’s direction. These prophets had a bag full of tricks to use in determining the god’s response in each case and thereby maintaining power over the people for that god.

The people did not want to be faithful to the one true God. They tried to follow both God and the Baals and Asherahs. They followed one opinion (God) up to a point or for awhile and then switched to the other opinion (Baals and Asherahs). They never made a permanent spiritual choice. Elijah said you have to choose. You have to stand for the one true God or the many gods. You have to depend on only one source of power. You cannot try to get a little bit from each side. To make no choice is to forfeit all sources of power. The people wanted to play both sides against the middle. They refused to choose.

Elijah set the rules for the contest. He as God’s prophet and the prophets of Baal and Asherah, would prepare an animal for sacrifice on an altar. No one would be allowed to start a fire to burn the sacrifice. That would be God’s job. The prophets would intercede with their gods. The prophets of Baal and Asherah would pray to their gods for them to send fire and win the contest. Elijah would pray to his God that He would send fire and win the contest.

A possible way of sending fire would be a lightning bolt. The lightening bolt would start the fire and be a sign that rain was on its way. That would demonstrate that the deity who won the contest had power to produce fertility in the land. The people listened to the contest rules and then broke their silence. The rules were fair and right. They were good. The God who answers by fire proves He is the one true God, and they will follow Him.

The contest began! In a way Elijah and he crowd had forced Baal’s prophets into a corner. Elijah had laid down all the ground rules, and in Vs. 24 the people had agreed. The prophets of Baal followed the agreed-upon rules of the contest. They placed a bull on their altar, but they put on fire under it. Then they leaped about and prayed to Baal until noon, "but there was no voice, nor any that answered."

Elijah taunted them by asking where Baal was. Was he on a trip? Was he asleep? The frantic prophets continued to pray, even cutting themselves with knives. Perhaps with the idea that Ball would feel sorry for them

Elijah had been standing at a distance. Now he called the people to himself. They stood and watched as he repaired God’s ruined altar, ruined by neglect or by Jezebel’s agents during the purge of Yahweh worshipers. Elijah gathered 12 stones for the altar, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob. As he gathered the stones, perhaps the people began to remember their history. Their nation was called Israel because God had renamed their ancestor back in Gen 32:28. God had wrestled with Jacob. Now God was fighting for His people.

Maybe they also thought about the division of their nation. God had created twelve tribes, but not all twelve were represented on Mt. Carmel. After Solomon’s death, God’s people had divided into Israel and Judah. Did the people remember that Israel (the Northern Kingdom) had departed form the temple, the ark, and the house of David and had created a poor and ungodly imitation of the revelation at Sinai? Did they realize that God still loved them?

A wide ditch was dug around the altar. On the altar was placed the wood and the bullock. Four barrels with water were poured over the sacrifice three times. These 12 barrels of water totally saturated the altar, the sacrifice, and the wood. It also filled the trench. Donald Wiseman pointed out that in pouring this amount of water on the altar Elijah was guaranteeing against fraud in what was about to happen. The account as a whole implies that Elijah’s actions occurred in the evening, we assume about sundown.

Then Elijah prayed a very simple, brief prayer to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, the promise-keeping covenant God of Israel. "Answer me, O Lord, answer me."

Elijah asked for three things in his prayer in Vs. 36-37: "let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel" was the heart of his prayer. He also asked that God would show that Elijah was His servant. Finally he asked the Lord to turn the heart of the people back to the Lord.

God has all power. He is omnipotent, and He controls when and how to use it for the good of the people. However, God awaits our preparations and prayers for His power. Elijah had done all he would do. Then he prayed for God to do what only He could do. This prayer shows the faith and courage of Elijah. He prayed this prayer because he was sure the Lord would answer his requests.

The people were overwhelmed with the mighty act of God. They fell to the ground in worship. Falling prostrate was one way to worship, but it probably had something to do with what the people had witnessed. They had seen a demonstration of God’s power and probably wanted to hide their faces in fear and perhaps in shame because of their previous silence. We would like to believe it showed repentance and reverence. "The Lord, He is the Lord" was repeated twice and probably over and over. The people now made a clear commitment to serve the Lord.

The same day they slaughtered Baal’s prophets. That was a brutal way of showing Baal had no power and God’s power was sufficient.

One of the clear lessons of this passage is that God has the power to do whatever He chooses to do. He is called omnipotent, which means "all-powerful." The Lord has demonstrated His awesome power in many ways. He created all things with such power that we cannot conceive of it. He delivered His people from Egypt in mighty power that overwhelmed the greatest empire of the day.

He raised the Lord Jesus from the dead with power. He has acted with outward expressions of power in many lives. However, God also has demonstrated His power in quieter, less visible ways. Some of God’s miracles in the Bible and today are awesome displays of mighty power; many are quieter, more personal miracles.

It is beyond me how God could send His precious Son to die on the cross for my sins. The Power in God’s love also surpasses human understanding. That power was demonstrated in Jesus resurrection, showing Him to be God’s Son. I am glad I do not have to understand that power in order to experience it. Through that redeeming love I have received forgiveness for my sins and He has made me a new creation.

The sequel to Mt. Carmel is found in 1 Kings 19. In that experience, the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. He spoke to Elijah in "a still small voice." That was God’s way of teaching Elijah that bringing in His kingdom in human hearts and overcoming inward evil is not done with powerful outward demonstrations. It is done by the power of God working within the human heart.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, the people pressured Him and Satan tempted Him to use displays of power to win a following. However, Jesus knew that His was to be the way of the cross. When He was arrested, Jesus refused to summon legions of angels to deliver Him. He knew that sin could only be destroyed by self-giving love.

God sometimes shows His power in awesome displays of outward might, but He more often works quietly to give us the inward strength of His presence. The N.T. makes clear that the power within each believer is because of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The song, "My Lord Is Near Me All The Time," from our Baptist Hymnal says:

When the thunder shakes the mighty hills and trembles ev’ry tree,

Then I know a God so great and strong can surely harbor me.

I’ve seen it in the lightning, heard it in the thunder, and felt it in the rain;

My Lord is near me all the time, My Lord is near me all the time.

When refreshing showers cool the earth and sweep across the sea,

Then His rainbow shines within my heart, His nearness comforts me.

I’ve seen it in the lighting, heard it in the thunder, and felt it in the rain;

My Lord is near me all the time, My Lord is near me all the time.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Many people, unfortunately, think that all religions are equally good.

2. But all religions are not equally good--some of them are built on falsehood and

deceit and lead to tragedy, pain, and death.

3. The Book of Revelation indicates that false religion is an instrument of the devil

and is one of the greatest obstacles to true religion.

4. Americans ought to be grateful for the freedom of religion but it does not logically

follow that all religions are equally valid.

5. People ought to use their intelligence in evaluating the teachings of different religions

and study carefully the type of people that religion produces.

6. Christians should not be afraid of honest, intellectual inquiry concerning the life and

teachings of Jesus Christ.

7. Notice the type of person and persons that would be produced if all of us truly

followed the teachings of Jesus Christ.

NEXT WEEK FROM ISAIAH 43 WE SEEK THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION "HOW DOES GOD SAVE US?" A.V. DAUGHERTY 9-17-00

After praying for the most he could envision and with his greatest faith, Paul committed his payer "unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." (Eph. 3: 20) Why don’t you make this your prayer too?