Where Is Jesus In The OT #9 "Elijah on Mt. Carmel" 1Kings 18

I. The Lord Takes The Initiative

1. He sends a drought. In 1Kings 17 God removes his prophet Elijah from king Ahab by sending Elijah into hiding for over 3 years. Not only is there a physical drought -- there is a drought of the Word of God. God does this to bring Ahab to his senses but it is not enough. Instead of coming to repentance, Ahab sees Elijah as the troublemaker! (vs. 17) How often we blame God and His intervention for our troubles instead of coming to repentance.

2. The Lord has a variety of ways of working. While Elijah is gone from the scene, God raises up Obadiah to protect some of the prophets by hiding them in a cave. So often we crave the flashy calling and ministry, but remember, God uses Obadiah too – there are many different and valid roles in the Kingdom of God (see Romans 12!)

3. Thank God that He doesn’t wait for us to seek Him! The people aren't crying out for help and neither is their king, but God sends His prophet to not only speak the Word but to fight the Lord's enemies (something the king should be doing!)

4. The situation is very serious – the people have broken their marriage vows with God and spurned His love. The silence of the people in vs. 20-21 is very revealing – the marriage is over. God must thoroughly discredit Baal and publicly display his impotence to turn the heart of His people back to Him. And He is willing to do this!

5. God pursues them with a challenge – Who is God? Follow Him! Theology and discipleship are always linked! “Elijah will not allow you to attend a “God-contest” simply so that you can conclude, “Well, now we see that Yahweh is the real God. What movie do you want to see?” Elijah, the Bible, Yahweh himself, will not allow you the comfort of such detachment. If Yahweh is God, follow Him!” (Dale Ralph Davis) In fact, all knowledge involves trusting something (as Michael Polanyi has pointed out.) The Enlightenment idea that the best way to find truth is the stand on the sidelines dispassionately examining the evidence is a naïve description of how knowledge works. You are trusting something – so live it out, try it on and see if it works with reality.

II. The Lord Does Battle Against His Enemy

1. It is important for us to understand something about the attraction of Baal worship in this period. Ralph Davis points out that it had the approval of the throne – and thus people would be attracted to it to boost their careers. It also dealt with felt needs – Baal was the storm and fertility god who would provide sperm (the rain) to fertilize the earth and make things grow. Plus, Baal worship involved all kinds of sexual stuff. The frenzy of Baal worship (vs. 26-29) was like a “porno flick” for Baal to hopefully get him aroused to provide the rain needed for life. Thus Baal worship involved having sex with temple prostitutes.

2. But God takes Baal on – on Baal’s turf! Mt. Carmel was a prominent place where Baal was worshipped, and where the Lord’s altar had been torn down (see 18:30.) So Baal has “home-court advantage” (Davis.)

3. God takes on overwhelming odds. There are 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah, and only one Elijah. But as Davis says so well, “Carmel Day showed that popularity does not determine reality.” Don’t judge the future of God’s cause by what you see – He is the One who brings life out of death in you life and in His world!

4. God gives the Baal worshippers plenty of time to try to get Baal’s attention – with Elijah taunting them! The Hebrew text says Elijah’s taunts include “maybe he is going to the bathroom.” Who says sarcasm has no place in God’s purposes – sometimes ridiculous things need to be ridiculed.

5. God seems to go out of His way to make it so obvious that He is God. Elijah has them soak the sacrifice with water three times! But God sends fire that utterly consumes the sacrifice, the stones, the soil, and the water!

III. But This Is Not Just A Power Demonstration -- It Is A Mercy Demonstration!

1. It is the sacrifice that is burned up on the repaired altar made with 12 stones to represent His people! Thus we see that God is still willing to receive the sacrifice, the covenant still stands, He has not rejected His people, though they surely deserve it! And God doesn't just receive the sacrifice, He makes it abundantly clear by absolutely consuming it -- God goes overboard in demonstrating His mercy!

2. Elijah prays to make sure the people recognize what is really going on. Elijah prays “Answer me Lord so that these people will know that you Lord are God and that you are turning their hearts back again.” These adulterous people need to know the Lord is still committed to them – there is hope even after grievous betrayal!

3. The cross is ultimate mercy demonstration! “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

4. But mercy is not God just winking at sin. The Lord orders the Baal prophets killed -- He is not to be trifled with! Some people may think, why does the story have to go there? But God is calling Elijah to bring the sentence outlined in Deuteronomy 13 for those who would mislead His people whom He loved. The jealous love of God is not impotent. The Lord triumphs over His enemies who have led His people into false worship - the full picture of this is in Col 2:13-15 and Heb 2:14-15.

Concluding Applications

1. Baal worship may seem distant from our day, but there is much “Christian” busyness that is more like Baal worship than we might want to admit.

·  Do we think that our busyness, and our religious activity will get God to notice us? Jesus condemns the way pagans pray with lots of words trying to manipulate God. We see this in the TV preachers of the “Word of Faith” movement – but it creeps into our own lives at times as well. The heart of the gospel is that God takes the initiative and pursues us – we don’t have to kill ourselves trying to get His attention. Why are you so busy? For sure, some of you are burdened with things that you didn’t bring on yourself. But it is worth considering why we do what we do. What are you doing to be noticed?

·  Is the gospel of the bloody sacrifice at the heart of our worship – or is it our promises and activity? Consider the prayers and the words of the songs that you sing.

2. Do you think that God requires big flashy programs to evangelize or bring revival to Belmont? Consider these wise words from Rev. Steve Malone, a former RUF campus minster at Auburn, “What is the normal Christian life? What are we hoping to see cultivated in people? We are constantly driving people to make a big splash. Once or twice a year, a group comes along with a plan to “take Auburn by storm”. There is always a lot of noise and clamor, a lot of labor and money spent, and for a moment everyone (the Christians at least) look up to see what’s going on. As quickly as it appears, it disappears. Some get excited and want to make more noise next year. But for the most part the noise fades and people go back to the business at hand.

And that is where the church ought to meet people, in the “business at hand”. The ordinary, mundane duties and experiences that make up the larger portion of our lives. Jesus said the whole sum of Christian living was loving God and loving our neighbor. Did He mean for us to work that out in an arena or in our minute by minute ordinary lives? The more difficult and yet truest and most meaningful spirituality is that which deals with Jesus in everything. The prophet Micah charges the people of God with spiritual falsehood because they are always making noise in the temple, and yet cheat in business. Their spirituality has nothing to do with life.

The church has a ministry of presence: being present in people’s lives, helping them see the graces of the gospel in all they are and do, being there when God works. What shape does a ministry of presence take?

We’re to help people break out of poverty. We’re to help a man love his wife (and vice-versa) when she/he is unlovable. We’re to help a divorced woman take Christ as her husband and learn to deal with her hurt and loneliness. We’re to help her children with their anger and see the cross transform it to love. We’re to help a man or woman who feels lost in his/her work deal with the providence of God. We’re to help an exhausted mom glory in the thousand tasks God has called her to. We’re to help a man trapped in destructive sin find the cross and its healing power. We’re to help those who feel the futility of living find significance in the kingdom of God. We’re to help frantically busy people learn to pray. We’re to help the man or woman we work or live with see the joy and hope of the gospel and deal with their disdain for God and his people. We’re to help people share griefs and joys.

We’re to feed people from the Word of God. We’re to teach them to open their lives to others. In other words, we help them “love God and love people” in the regular stuff of life.

The ministry of presence doesn’t sell well. It’s a little hard to measure. We’re not even sure what it looks like ourselves. It requires “dogged obedience and robust prayer”. But this is what it means to know God.

When we think about evangelism and discipleship, we should think about meeting people where they live- in the “business at hand”. There we will find great struggles and messes, and there we will see the transforming graces of Christ. Many Christians will never notice or recognize this as ministry because it makes so little noise. So what. God brings extraordinary things out of the ordinary.”