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[0:00] Kings chapter 18. 1 Kings 18. We've been talking about Elijah and his life and the fact that he had gone through different things.

[0:23] God was preparing him for what we're about to talk about. He had gone to the Brook Cherith and been fed there and had food delivered to him supernaturally. We talked about when he was at Zarephath and the filling of the cruise of oil and the barrel of meal, the raising of the widow's son.

[0:44] All these things were preparing him for the things that were coming up. Last week we were talking about the fact that he and Ahab finally reconnect.

[0:54] After three and a half years, he finally reconnects with Ahab. And you know how it goes. Ahab's like, you're the problem.

[1:05] You're the things, doing all these things and stuff. And Elijah said, no, you're the problem. He first issued a challenge. Elijah challenged three different groups.

[1:15] He challenged Ahab, the potentate, the king. Challenged him with the things of the word of God. And said, if you have continued on and you've been a fan of Baal.

[1:31] And Jezebel has kept people at her table, banqueting table, and fed them and everything. And Elijah says, you know, you're the cause for the reason for the drought and things that have taken place.

[1:48] And so for three and a half years, they've had this drought. So why didn't Ahab just kill him? Because he was convinced that it was not going to rain again until Elijah said so.

[2:00] Elijah had said that when the rain stopped. And so he was convinced, oh no, he wasn't going to do anything. Ahab talks about him in verse 17 of being the one who troubled Israel. You're causing up trouble.

[2:13] You're stirring up strife. You're doing all these things. And he said that same word can also have a reference to a snake or a serpent. So basically, Elijah, you're causing all these problems like a snake in the grass.

[2:24] You're sneaking up on us. You're doing things. You're causing all kinds of problems. Then we said there was a condemnation. He accuses Ahab. He looks him right straight in the eye and says, you're the problem.

[2:38] You're the one causing all of this. In verse 37 there in 1 Kings 18, he says, 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.

[2:52] He's praying that God would be honored, God would be uplifted, and God would be able to change their hearts and their minds. Sometimes people go through chastening.

[3:03] Sometimes people go through different things. And we talked about Proverbs 3.11. My son despised not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction. Proverbs 3.12 also says, for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father of the son in whom he delighted.

[3:20] Third thing we talked about was the challenge. He gives a challenge to the people. 450 prophets of Baal.

[3:31] 400 prophets of Asherah, which was like a consort of Baal. So all of these prophets, the consorts, the ones of 400, have the ones who have been eating at Jezebel's table.

[3:44] As a matter of fact, he says that in verse 19. He says, therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal, 450. The prophets of the groves, 400, which eat at Jezebel's table.

[3:58] Ahab, you've been supplying their needs. You've been taking care of them. You've been paying for everything for them to do their job of trying to bring people to Baal. You're supposed to be representing God.

[4:10] This is God's chosen people. And you're not out there telling them that this is wrong, that they should be following God. You're promoting Baal.

[4:24] There's eight times that Elijah speaks in this part of this passage. And every time he's giving them a command, something to do.

[4:35] So again, why didn't Ahab take care of him? Because God's taking care of him. God's taking care of Elijah. Isaiah 54, 17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.

[4:47] And every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment shall be condemned. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their righteousness is in me, saith the Lord. Nothing is going to stop Elijah from doing God's will, doing what God has called him to do, until God is finished with him.

[5:06] He is going to be able to continue going on. It doesn't matter what Ahab thinks. He's going to go on. Then Elijah challenges the people. Look at verse 21.

[5:16] In verse 21 he says, And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him.

[5:28] And the people answered him, not a word. He gives a challenge to the people. And notice what they did. They didn't say anything.

[5:38] If God's God, follow him. If Baal's God, then follow him. Make up your mind. Stop walking on the fence. He asked them a question. Who are you going to follow? How long are you going to wait before you choose who you're going to follow?

[5:54] How long? And just like in Revelation, the city of Laconia, the church there at Laconia, vacillating back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

[6:12] And they had trouble making up their mind. Matthew wrote this. Matthew 12, 30. He says, He that is not with me is against me.

[6:25] And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. He says, if you're not with him, you're against him. Are we with God? That brings us up to where we left off last week.

[6:38] Number two on there, a quandary. He presents the people with this question. He presents them with a problem. Look, if God's God, then make him Lord and follow him.

[6:51] If Baal is God, then make him Lord and follow him. But make up your mind. Which one is it going to be? Is it going to be God or is it going to be Baal? You know, the same choices, decisions face us today.

[7:08] Too many people want to walk with God and also walk with the world. I want to keep my hand, one hand in God's hand and one hand in the world's hand. That way I can kind of, you know, I can get the best that God has for me and I can get the best the world has for me.

[7:24] I can have everything. I can get it all. No, you have to make a choice. Is it going to be God? Exactly.

[7:44] Yep. Yeah, Satan doesn't want us making a commitment to God. He wants us. He doesn't mind us being on the fence. He would rather we are all the way over here. But if we're on the fence, we're not completely doing what God wants us to do either.

[7:55] So he's okay with that. Who are you going to serve? Who is going to be the one that we put our trust in? Who's the one that we're going to follow? There was a quietness.

[8:07] Third thing, a quietness. Did you notice what he said there? He puts that challenge to the people. Who are you going to serve? Then what did they say? Nothing. Not a thing.

[8:21] We are going to just sit back here and be quiet and watch what happens and then we'll go from there. So let them do their thing. Let them have, you give them the challenge you're talking about and just let them go and do it and then we'll decide what we're going to do.

[8:36] Who we're going to follow. You know, we need to make sure that we are following the Lord. Doing what he has for us. Then he also challenges the prophets.

[8:48] The prophets. Look at verse 22. He says to the prophets, Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord.

[8:59] But Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks. And let us choose one bullock for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood and put no fire under.

[9:14] And I will dress the other bullock and lay it on wood and put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your gods and I will call on the name of the Lord. And God hath answered by fire.

[9:28] Let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. Remember, first of all, he says, follow God and they don't say anything. Now he comes up with this idea of a challenge.

[9:39] And they're like, oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, let's see which one actually does things. Let's see who actually comes through on all these things. Notice, it's a challenge. So, he basically comes up with the idea of two teams.

[9:54] Elijah and 450 prophets of Baal over here. One against 450. Yeah, that's not usually the best way to do things.

[10:07] But, he says, look, I'm going to serve God. I'm going to follow him. You talk about courage. You talk about faith. Elijah's got it.

[10:18] All kinds of it. And, he says, look, here's what's going to happen. We're going to put these bullocks up here. We're going to do these things where we cut them up, put them on the altar, and let's see who comes up with fire.

[10:34] And, notice, he says, I'm over here by myself. All you guys are over here. But, he's not by himself. Remember, in Matthew 28, 20, when he gives the Great Commission, what does he say?

[10:50] I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. He says, you're not by yourself. In Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 5. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have.

[11:05] For he has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. I will never leave thee. Way back when I first started out, we used to do the hand thing.

[11:18] I will never leave thee. God is always there. Anytime you think that you're by yourself, anytime you think that nobody's around to help you, just look at your hand.

[11:32] I will never leave thee. Right there, all the time. The Bible talks a lot about God's right hand. We need to make sure that we are following God's right hand.

[11:49] Think about how God takes care of us. I was talking to somebody the other day. Might have been Mike at the jail. And I said, we were talking about David.

[12:02] David. And he was asking if Solomon was, if David was Solomon's father. I said, yes. And he goes, is that the same David with David and Goliath?

[12:15] I said, yes. And so we talked about David and Goliath and how God was with David. The fact that David went to take food from his house, his father's house, to his brothers who were there where the battles were going to take place.

[12:31] Israel's on one side. Philistines are on the other side. David's a teenage boy. And he comes and he brings his stuff to his brothers. And he hears what Goliath is saying.

[12:43] And Goliath is boasting. And Goliath is talking about how he could crush anybody over there and everything. You send somebody out and we'll fight. And if I win, you guys serve us.

[12:55] If he wins, we'll serve them. And then he starts making comments about God. And then David's like, okay, that's enough. And he goes, and his teenage boy goes up against Goliath.

[13:08] But God was with him. Remember I was telling you last week, Dr. Bob Sr. used to say, you and God make a majority. You and God can do anything.

[13:21] So he's got two teams. Elijah, 450 prophets of Baal. What are the terms of the game? What are the terms of the game? Look at 23 again.

[13:32] Let them therefore give us two bullocks. And let them choose one bullock for themselves. And cut it in pieces. And lay it on wood. And put no fire under.

[13:43] Remember that. For I will dress the other bullock. And lay it on wood. And put no fire under. He says, okay, we're going to take these bullocks. We're going to cut them up. We're going to put them on the altar.

[13:53] We're going to see what happens. But we're not going to put any fire under. According to historical records, that means that they used to, the pagan altars and things, used to have a place underneath them where one of their priests could hide.

[14:13] And so they're doing their stuff, trying to call, you know, fire and stuff. The priest could be hiding underneath and just kind of stick a torch out and light it from underneath. Light the kindling and let it go.

[14:25] Oh, God did some great things there. Notice Elijah's specific. No fire under. If anything's going to happen, it's coming down from the top. Your God's going to send fire down or God's going to send fire down.

[14:40] Baal's going to or God's going to. One or the other. And so therefore, you know how they go. They're going to do all their things and stuff and try to get fire.

[14:52] And they were confident. Those guys from Baal were confident because Baal was the God of life. He was a fertility God. He was seen in the rain and in the sun.

[15:06] When the thunderclouds cracked and lightning came out, that was Baal giving off, you know, whatever was needed, whatever they were trying to do.

[15:17] When they looked up into the sun, that was the face of Baal. So getting a fire to come down, that's not a problem at all. Except they did have a problem.

[15:31] You know, just a side note, the word bonfire, you ever like to have bonfires and stuff? That actually comes from a Saxon word that was Baal fire.

[15:43] That's where the idea of it comes from. The Baal would bring that fire down. Now, you think about these guys. 450 prophets of Baal. They've got their stuff there.

[15:53] They've got their beliefs about who Baal is and what he can do. And they are confident that Baal's going to do that. Except one little problem. You remember over in Job, Job chapter 1, Satan has to get permission before going up against God's man.

[16:13] Remember he had to get permission about the things he was going to do to Job? Well, Satan has to get permission to be able to do some things. And so that day, no fire was coming down.

[16:25] God made sure of it. You think about the children of Israel. They're there, they're watching things. Some of them should have remembered their history. Some of them should have remembered the things they've been reading in the Torah.

[16:38] Because if they had been, they would have remembered Abraham in a burning bush. They would have remembered a pillar of fire that led the children of Israel during the nighttime as they went through the wilderness.

[16:52] They would have remembered a group of people complaining and murmuring and being burned up by fire. They would have remembered Moses going up on top of Mount Sinai and seeing fire up there while he was up there.

[17:07] See, God had time and time and time again used fire. Third thing, tragedy.

[17:18] The tragedy. Look at the last part of verse 24. He said, we're going to do all these different things. And then it says, And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.

[17:32] Why is that a tragedy? Because here's God's people, the children of Israel. And they are saying, It's okay to prove God.

[17:44] It's okay to test God. It's okay to find out if he's really who he says he is. He's done this in the past and this in the past and this in the past and this in the past and this in the past and this in the past.

[17:56] But it's okay because we need to be reassured that he can actually do something. You know, it's interesting when you think about how we treat God sometimes, how we handle God.

[18:12] When God has to compete for our attention, when God has to compete for our trust, we have to be so very careful.

[18:27] We need to follow him, be faithful to him, make sure that we trust him in everything that we do. Elijah says, I believe God and I'm going to trust him because I have seen what he has done in the past and I believe he will do it again.

[18:46] We need to do that. We need to trust God and believe that he will come and answer our prayers that we're about to do. I saw Moses and Jesus required that God that they cannot walk on pieces of chariots there too.

[19:24] Yeah. Yeah. That I have heard. But God works and God takes care of things. Trust him. I don't know.

[19:41] Maybe. They don't want anybody near that. Yeah. It's like like Mon Ararat. You can only go so far.

[19:52]  All right.