[0:00] Kings 18. Actually, Angela, go to the one who talked about the contest.
[0:17] The contest. I'm sorry, I was late. No, it's all right. You get done. Last week we were talking about Elijah finally meeting up with Ahab again.
[0:32] Two of them getting together. Elijah tells Ahab that he's ready to put a challenge out there. He wants to go up against the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the groves and things and everything.
[0:48] Look with me at verse 25. 18, verse 25. And it says, And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves and dress it first, for ye are many, and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
[1:05] And they took the bullock 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.
[1:16] They leaped 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 on a journey or per venture he sleepeth and must be awakened.
[1:31] And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances till the blood gushed out upon them. Stop there for a second.
[1:42] Let's have a word of prayer. Father, pray that you would help us as we take a look at this passage tonight. Lord, you would just help us to understand what you have for us, Lord. As we look at Elijah and we look at the courage he had to stand, Lord, and we look at what he has accomplished.
[1:58] And, Lord, the fact that you are with him in everything he did yet. He does. Lord, just bless, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Okay, so he has this contest.
[2:10] He's going to execute with them. He's getting it underway. The challenge has been accepted by Ahab. Sounded good to him. Sounded good to the people when we were talking about it. But then he has, there's a problem with the challenge.
[2:23] And the problem is with the false prophets. He gives them first shot. And he says, okay, here you go. And here's their ministry. What are they going to do?
[2:34] They're going to prepare the bullet. They're going to get it ready. They're going to put it on the altar. And they're going to start from early in the morning until noontime, it says. They're praying.
[2:44] They screamed. They called on Baal. Did all kinds of things. Nothing happened. They cry and scream some more in the afternoon. Nothing happens. They appear to be wasting their time.
[2:56] As a matter of fact, in verse 27 there, it talks about the fact that Elijah mocked them. Their mockery. They, you know, they, he saw the foolishness of what they were doing. He saw the fact that it was futile.
[3:08] And he starts to mock them. Oh, yeah. Do it louder. He's a god. He might be busy, but he's a god. He can hear you. He'll take, he'll do whatever you want. And maybe he's gone out of town for a while.
[3:23] Maybe he's gone hunting. Maybe he's gone to do this or that. You know, maybe he's asleep. Wake him up. All of these different things Elijah says to them. He's pretty rough on them.
[3:36] And he says, look, you have a god who's supposed to be able to do these things. And remember when I talked last week, the week before, about Baal. Baal was a god, you know, who was a son.
[3:48] He had fire. He can do all these different things. Nothing. Nothing happens. Notice their misery. In verse 28 and 29, I was reading there, they cried loud, cut themselves.
[4:01] You know, they're screaming. They're jumping up and down. They're doing all these different things, and nothing's going to happen. You know, the people, what the bad thing is, the people who are there are watching all of these things.
[4:14] They're watching what happens, and nothing is happening. And it says they did it all morning. They did it into the afternoon. I don't care how good a show you've got going on.
[4:27] Six, seven, eight hours of it. I'm tired. I'm not paying attention anymore. And that's what the people are doing here. These guys are doing all their things, and finally the people are like, really?
[4:38] Really? This is all you've got? There's nothing to see here. You know, we like a lot of activity. We like a lot of things happening and stuff.
[4:49] But it doesn't always mean that God's in the midst of it. You know, God is going to do things in his time. And then, of course, they're trying to get Baal to do this, so Baal's not going to accomplish anything. Which brings us to verses 30 through 38, which is the power of the faithful prophet.
[5:05] Power of the faithful prophet. And look with me at verse 30 to 35. He makes preparations. And in verse 30, it says, And Elijah came unto all the people, Come near unto me.
[5:17] And all the people came near unto him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. Let's stop there for a second. They had built all these altars to Baal. Everybody was worshiping Baal, so the altars to God had been broken down.
[5:32] They were in disrepair. So he takes one of them, and he repairs it, puts it back together again. And he's rebuilding it. It says in verse 31 and 2, 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.
[5:53] 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 it would contain two measures of seed. So he rebuilds it, uses twelve stones, twelve tribes of Israel, puts it together in the name of the Lord.
[6:10] He has it all put back together and everything. Sometimes we need to do that.
[6:21] We need to take time to repair the altar. We need to take time to spend time in prayer with God. We need to take time to be talking with him, spending time with him. You know, it's one thing to be on your way to work and pray behind the wheel of your car.
[6:36] And that's good, and that's fine. But there needs to be times when it's just me and God. Nothing else to distract me. Nothing else going on. I just need to be able to concentrate on what God is saying and what God is doing.
[6:48] Verse 33, he slaughters the bullock. He says, he put the wood in order, cut the bullock in pieces, laid him on the wood, and said, fill four barrels with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.
[7:04] You know, he says, do all these different things. Get yourself ready. We're going to have a sacrifice made here. We have to have a time before God's going to work.
[7:17] We have to have a time when we stop and we remember and we repent of the sin that we had. The Bible tells us we confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all the righteousness.
[7:30] So he gets it ready, gets the people focused on that. He puts all this water on it. Remember, it hasn't rained in three and a half years. Now he's saying, fill up the water barrels and put it on the air.
[7:43] I'm sure there were some people that are going, wait a minute, we need that water. We want that water to drink. But remember, nobody says a word. This whole time, nobody's talking. Nobody's saying anything. So it's like, I've got 12 tribes, the stones in the 12 tribes, and then he's got 12 barrels of water.
[7:58] I'm going to put 12 things in God's path and let's see if he can still do it. Baal guys, they had all their chance and everything.
[8:09] I'm putting my sacrifice there. I'm going to water it down. Let's see what God does. Four barrels. Okay.
[8:20] And then, look at verse 36. And it came to pass at the end of the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, God, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and 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.
[8:43] 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. He gives this prayer, a 63-word prayer.
[8:57] The prophets of Baal have been going all day long doing all the different things. Elijah gets his all prepared and ready, and he gives a 63-word prayer. Think about that.
[9:10] That's it. 63-word. And notice what he said in the prayer. Let's look at it again there. The end of verse 36 there. The 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.
[9:30] Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and thou hast turned their heart back again. Anywhere in there does he ask for fire?
[9:43] Anywhere in there does he ask for rain? No. What does he ask for? He asks that God be glorified. He asks that the people would know that he is God's servant, and he asks that the people be revived.
[9:59] That's what his prayer was all about. He could have prayed for all those other things, but he didn't. He wants God honored, glorified, and he wants the people revived.
[10:10] So his heart is in the right place. His heart is whatever God wants. That's what I want. Look at verse 38. It says, Then the fire of the Lord fell.
[10:23] 63-word prayer. Fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, licked up the water that was in the trench. The proof that God was in it.
[10:36] He didn't have to jump around. He didn't have to holler. He didn't have to cut himself. He prayed a 63-word prayer. It says, And the fire fell. And notice, Remember we talked about there was no fire underneath.
[10:49] We talked about that last week. And notice what it says, what happened here in verse 38. It says, The fire came down, consumed the sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water in the trench.
[11:03] From the top down. From the top down. Exactly. It came from the top down. God was working. God was doing exactly what they had agreed to. We must never underestimate the power of a life that's dedicated to God.
[11:19] When someone is dedicated to Him, sold out to Him, look at what can be accomplished. The fire fell from above. God answered His prayer.
[11:31] And then the third thing, notice the crisis ended. In verse 39 and 40. It says, And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, The Lord, He is the God.
[11:45] The Lord, He is the God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal, that not one of them escape. And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.
[11:59] Notice first of all what happened. There's a repentance that takes place. Notice the people see that God is who He says He is.
[12:10] They are now not silent anymore. Remember before this, Elijah's telling them things, and they didn't say a word. But now, they're not silent anymore.
[12:21] They're ready. They're ready to show glory to God for what He has done. Notice their... Excuse me. Notice their conviction.
[12:32] It says they fell on their faces. They fell on their faces. An act of humility. They fell on their faces before the Lord. You know, sometimes we have to find ourselves in the same place.
[12:47] We need to find ourselves in a place of humility before God. Humble before Him. Prostrate before Him. Showing that He's worthy of everything that we know.
[12:58] Notice their confession. The Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. He is God. We acknowledge Him. We declare His glory.
[13:08] We see His place. We have reverence for Him. They have a new zeal for God and who He is. Baal is about to be left in the dust.
[13:20] Literally, yes. So... And then, notice... The removal of the wicked prophets. The removal of the wicked prophets. Verse 40.
[13:31] Says that Elijah said, Take them all down to Kishon. And he came down there and killed them. And everybody is like, Wow! He killed all those guys?
[13:42] 450 of them? Really? Why would He do that? He did what had to be done. Think about it. And he has pretty much gone now.
[13:56] Last week I had skin cancer. Things done. And... You know, they use that stuff to try to... Freeze it and kill it and everything.
[14:10] And they... And if that doesn't work, then they go in and they start taking layers of skin. My mother's had that done. She was a few weeks ago before that. She was having some things done and they had to go down two or three layers for her.
[14:24] Why do they take that... All that out? You know, it's just a little bit here and there. Why do they take all that out? Because if you leave it, there's going to be more. And it's going to grow back.
[14:35] Yep. He had to get rid of the cancer that was in the country. These men were a cancer there. You know, they worshipped Baal. They wanted everybody to worship Baal.
[14:48] And when he did that, again, we think, Oh, why would he do that? Deuteronomy 13.5. Deuteronomy 13.5 says, And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in.
[15:16] So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. He says, the evil's got to be taken care of. It's got to be done away with. We have to get rid of the evil that is there.
[15:27] There's no greater crime against people of our world than to have people who are leading people away from Christ.
[15:42] Away from the fact that Jesus Christ went to the grave to pay for our sins. There's people who are trying to teach other things and he said, there's nothing worse because you're sending those people to hell when you do that.
[15:57] You know, we examine our lives and take a look at our lives. How are we doing? We don't want to become spiritually soft.
[16:07] You know, it's sometimes difficult to stand strong. Maybe it's their devotional life's not what it should be.
[16:19] Maybe you're not witnessing like you should be. Maybe you're not praising like you should be. You know, it could be any number of things. But we allow sin to creep in here and there.
[16:32] And we need to make sure we take care of it. We get rid of it. We cut it out of our lives. They need to be put to death. There are things that we sometimes allow in.
[16:44] We just need to say, no. It's got to go because it's hindering me from having my walk with God that I should have. So, we need to have a challenge from the Lord.
[16:59] We need to walk with him in everything that we do. but we need to be careful. Sometimes we try to set up things to try God, to prove God like they happen here.
[17:18] One of the biggest tragedies of this whole thing was when Elijah came and he talked about what he was going to do. People didn't say anything. Why was that such a tragedy?
[17:30] Because they should have said, no, we don't need that. We got God. We follow him. But they didn't say a word. They just let it go. We need to be so careful. We always stand for the Lord and what he has.
[17:43] Don't be like the prophets of Baal because where was their ultimate end? They died, but that wasn't their end.
[17:54] They wind up in hell. We need to be so very careful that we keep our eyes on Jesus Christ and follow him in everything that we do. All right, so, prophets of Baal and Elijah.
[18:09] Okay? All right. Bye. Yeah. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
[18:22] Bye. Bye.