God or Baal? Your choice!

God or Baal? Your choice!
By Rev. Robert P. Elkins
All scripture verse used is from the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted

“Elijah went before the people and said, "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.”(1st Kings 18:21)

I find it amazing how God works sometime, my wife and I took a trip to Maryland when I first retired from New York State Corrections, travel was one of the things we wanted to do when we had the time and since my parents had always said the same thing and then when my father retired they never went anywhere, by then his mind was deteriorating at a rapid rate and travel was out of the question and subsequently their dream ended. With none of us really knowing what is in store for us in the future my wife and I decided that we would not repeat the actions of our parents and said “Lets Go”, and so we did. As is my daily routine I usually raise early and try to do a Bible study each day and even on holiday in someone else’s home I like to follow that routine. It was before 06:00 in the morning and in the kitchen of my friend’s home I had already gotten out my Bible and opened it to the book of 1st Kings, the eighteenth chapter. I found a paper and pen on her desk, something I was sure she wouldn’t mind me using and before starting to read decided I’d make a pot of coffee first. When I turned back to the kitchen table I saw that my friend’s cat had gotten up on the table and was laying on my Bible, it truly did look like the cat was reading my Bible and I instantly knew that this was going to be a special reading this day, even one of God’s creatures, a cat, knew that 1st Kings was the passage for the day and the following is what the Holy Spirit brought to mind from that reading.

“Elijah went before the people and said, "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.” (1st Kings 18:21) With-in the Christian community there has been much controversy over the topic of predestination, the topic has divided the people into two camps, Calvinism and Arminianism, Calvinism claims that there is among God’s people predestination, some are predestined to go on to glory through salvation and some are not. They believe that God has preordained some to have the full experience of his glory in heaven and likewise he has already selected whom he will not have in heaven with him. Arminianism makes no such claim, rather the concept is that we all have a choice as to whether we will accept salvation or not, in essence, the ball is in your court, what are you going to do with it? Great theologians have debated this subject for eons and the debate continues on today. I on the other hand do not claim to be a great theologian, I’m a simple country preacher who knows my salvation is assured because I know Jesus Christ died for my sins and I accept his atoning work on the cross as the sacrifice that has been offered to God the Father for my sins and I acknowledge Jesus as the Lord of my life.

In 1st Kings eighteen were we to read the entire chapter we see Elijah talking to the people of Israel, they all are in the middle of an extreme drought and there is famine throughout the land. Elijah is confronting King Ahab; who is the husband of Queen Jezebel, both of them being a follower of the false god Baal. Because of the leadership of this king and his wife, she actually being the leader and he the puppet king, the people likewise have chased after the false god and in doing so have angered the one true God, the Lord God Jehovah, and in his wrath he has allowed this drought and famine to come upon the land and the people that live in that land are experiencing just what God’s wrath can be. Elijah is challenging the people in his statements, he’s asking them how long they are going to follow this false god and suffer the wrath of the true God, he’s challenging them to either follow the true Almighty God or follow Baal, Elijah is telling them that they have an option, pick one or the other but do something because the clock is ticking and time is running out for them, the drought is severe and the famine is deadly.

Does this reading address predestination? Can we apply this as fuel for the fires of Calvinism or Arminianism? As a simple country preacher I can’t say that we can or not, but what I can and do say is that from this reading of scripture it appears that Elijah is telling the people that they have a choice as to who they are going to follow and that it’s time they make a public declaration as to who their God is going to be. And it is also quite obvious that the people were not ready to make any such choice just yet. When the question was placed directly before them and they knew that they were in the middle of a drought and severe famine what was their reaction? They still were fence sitting, not wanting to go to the left or the right. Don’t we see this still in the church of Jesus Christ today? All of us can see that there is something going on in the world, in our nation, in our communities, in our families and in the church that is not right and yet we still want to follow the worldly ways, we are afraid to take a stand for what God said is right and what is wrong. We want to be politically correct and not offend anyone rather than being Biblically correct and addressing sin as what it is, sin, something that is offensive to God and a stench to his nostrils. The church today wants to make sure that everyone is welcomed through the doors and that no one is left outside in the cold even if it means not addressing the sins of the people so as not to offend anyone. Friend, there is nothing wrong in inviting everyone into the church of Jesus Christ, we are even commanded to do just that, in (Matthew 28:19-20) Jesus said: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” But when we invite everyone to come into the church if they are coming with luggage that is filled with sinful behavior they need to leave their luggage at the door, we need to make sure that the people are welcome but their sinful behavior isn’t. If it’s offensive to God it shouldn’t be in the church! Mind you know, I’m talking about the sinful behavior, not the people. The people are welcome; the sin is not. Don’t shout me down just yet because you know that what I say is the truth. Today we have churches that are filled with people that practice all types of sinful behaviors on a regular basis and the leaders behind the pulpit say nothing about it because they are afraid that they might offend someone. I have to ask you a question, which do you think would be the better option? Saying something about sinful behavior now while the people are here in front of us and they can be shown that their behavior is offensive to God and possibly change that behavior or say nothing now and wait until they stand before God in judgment and then they hear from God that their behavior was offensive and they are cast off to hell?

"How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." It doesn’t seem to be that hard of a question not does it? How long do we think they the people of sinful behavior within the confines of God’s church should be allowed to waver between two opinions before we tell them the truth of the situation? Like it or not, sin is sin and God won’t stand for it, sin is offensive and God will not abide with it in his kingdom and neither should we in our churches. Should the church be a place where sinful people congregate? Of course! The scriptures tell us that all of us are sinful people, every one of us is a sinful person, if we weren’t we wouldn’t have needed the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to pay for our sins. But the object of being a believer in Jesus Christ is for each of us to try to lead a life as sin free as we can. There are many people that know and believe that there is one true God, the difference between them and the Christian that one follows the teachings of Jesus and the other doesn’t, even Satan and his demons know there is one true God, the scriptures tell us this. “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” (James 2:19) Will we ever hit the mark of perfection while in this life? No, but we still should strive for that mark and when we fail we need to ask for forgiveness and then move on with life again trying to live as sin free as possible. We can’t turn a blind eye to sinful behavior and pretend that it doesn’t exist, not in our own life and not in the church. If we as a person sin we need to go before God and ask forgiveness and likewise if there are people in the church that are leading a sinful lifestyle they also need to go before God and ask for forgiveness and should they feel that they don’t need to do this they need to be ejected from the church until such time as they have repented and sought God’s forgiveness. I can almost hear the gasps now, “Did he say eject them from the church?” Yes I did say just that and that is what needs to be done if someone refuses to follow the guidelines of the scriptures and flaunts it in the face of the church. You may be asking if there is any precedence found in the Bible for me to make such a harsh statement, and the answer to that question is a resounding, “Yes, this is exactly what the scriptures tell us to do.

The apostle Paul addressed this in his correspondence with his student and spiritual son, Timothy. “Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.” (1st Timothy 1:18-20) Hymenaeus was teaching that the resurrection of the saints had already come (see 2nd Tim. 2:18) and it is not recorded what the problem was with Alexander but it is not improbable that his sin was the same since they are both listed together in 1st Timothy and the two of them were excommunicated from the church. This theme is repeated again in 1st Corinthians in the fifth chapter. “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father's wife. And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.” (1st Corinthians 5: 1-5). Are these people to be rejected from fellowship forever? No, only until such time as they repent and their sins confessed before God and God’s grace and mercy applied by forgiveness, then they are to be restored to fellowship and snatched back for the hand of Satan before they loose their soul. “If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” (2nd Corinthians 2:5-11). I pray that I have shown you the scriptural background for my argument in regards to this issue of sinful behavior in the church and how we are to deal with it. It’s not about being politically correct, it’s not about protecting someone’s feelings, it’s about being biblically correct and saving them from the fires of hell.

Would this be a popular action to take within the church today? No most likely not but it’s not about being popular either, it’s not about numbers and growing a huge following of people. (Galatians 1:10) says; “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” I realize that the mega church is all the rage today but as for me, I’d rather attend a church partially filled with a few solid believers than a church of thousands that didn’t follow the directions of our King. Numbers aren’t everything you know, our God isn’t impressed with the number of people in the church as if the larger the number the better the church, he’s more interested in the heart of the believers that follow and that they are reaching out to the unsaved offering them a sound and solid message of salvation rather than the number of people that attend but haven’t heard the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In 1st Kings eighteen we can find an example of this, if you look in the nineteenth verse we can get an idea of the number of people Elijah was dealing with: “Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.” Although the challenge Elijah was about to issue went out to the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah with all the people of Israel to be invited as witnesses, only the prophets of Baal came forward to accept that challenge so the combat of the gods was going to be the one sole follower of God Almighty, Elijah, against four hundred and fifty false prophets and all of this was to take place before the people of Israel, they acting as the witness to record the outcome. In verses twenty-two through twenty-five Elijah lays out the ground rules for his challenge, he tells them that we each get a bull to slaughter, we each build a fire pit and fill it with wood and we each then place the sacrifice on the wood and wait for the god of our choice to ignite the wood and burn up the sacrifice. That sounds simple enough, arrange the wood, put on top of the wood the dead animal and then use nothing to light the fire other than the power of the god you pray to. You pray to your god and I’ll pray to my God and lets see how it comes out, lets see who has the real deal in their corner to get this forerunner of the community barbecue cooking. Elijah, always the gentleman of God allows the prophets of Baal to go first and they start calling upon their god but with little success. “ So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.” (1st Kings 18:26)

You see my friend there is an object lesson to be learned from this verse. Just as we looked at the allowance of sinful lifestyles within the church and how it’s is not to be, when praying to God we need not be dancing around the subject proper and seeking assistance from a strange but unreal and dead god but rather go directly to the one true God if we want results for our efforts. The fact of the matter is, as these prophets of Baal are about to learn, is that there is only one God. Offering prayer, worship, time or energy to anything other than the one true God is fruitless, a waste of time and effort and actually offensive to God, it like all other sin is a stench to his nostrils. We can see this in the reading of this passage, and if we continue reading further we can see that there is more of the lesson to be learned from this passage of holy writ. “At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.” (1st Kings 18:27-29)

Not only is prayer to a false god futile and ineffectual, it can be down right harmful to the prayer offering party. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not we as humans have a spiritual as well as a physical side to us. We have our human nature, our flesh and blood body and we have our spiritual nature too, and it’s the spiritual nature that Jesus talked about most of the time in his earthly ministry. Did Jesus minister to the physical needs of the people? Of course he did, we have many examples of this in the four synoptic gospels, the feeding of the five hundred, many healings of physical abnormalities; even the making of wine for a wedding ministered to the physical need of the people. But much of the time Jesus was talking about the spiritual nature of man and the effects a sinful life will have upon that spiritual nature, which in turn can have devastating effects upon the physical man as well. Contrary to the belief of some all physical illness is not the direct result of sin in a person, sometimes sickness comes from the fact that we live in a fallen world, a world that isn’t perfect and that has harmful elements in it that cause sickness, pain and suffering. Should a person suffer from some type of chronic breathing problem because they worked in a coal mine can we call that the result of a sinful nature? If another person is hiking along a mountain path sing psalms and praying to our Lord, and they happen to fall from the path and break a leg is it sin that caused the injury or is it just the law of gravity; a law created by God, that caused the person to stumble and fall thus creating the injury? But just as not all sickness and injury are the result of sin, some sickness and injury are, a drive by shooting by rival gangs, drug use and subsequent overdose, an auto accident by the drunk driver are a few of the most obvious. But there is also the kind of sickness and injury that can’t be seen by the naked eye, where the sinful lifestyle has taken a toll on the physical person, maybe mental illness that torments or the anxiety that many suffer from greed or jealously. The list of sins committed by men and women are many and the results of the drain on the physical part of the men and women are diverse and many too. In verses twenty-seven through twenty-nine the people offering useless prayer to a false god are harmed in a physical way that is self induced, that is self inflected, they cut and slashed themselves with swords and spears. In many cultures even today this is still a common practice, in many parts of Africa and in India and elsewhere about the world the people still inflict physical pain and blood letting upon themselves as a part of their prayers and worship to a dead and useless god, a god conceived in the minds of men and women who can neither see, hear or respond in any way. Our Lord does not only forbid prayer of any kind offered to a false idol; but as we have seen in our readings today, false idol worship is totally useless. Our Lord addresses this practice so eloquently in his Word, look at what God has to say about this in (Isaiah 44:12-20) “The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, "Ah! I am warm; I see the fire." From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, "Save me; you are my god." They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, "Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?" He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
In 1st Kings, chapter eighteen, verse twenty-six it says in regards to the useless prayers of the prophets of Baal “Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.” You see friend, just as these people danced around the altar they made we can do likewise. But in the end all of our dancing about the issues, about the altars we make will be futile if we aren’t serving the one true and living God Almighty. We can sing dance and shout all we want but if we aren’t calling out to the only true God who has the ability to respond we are only wasting our time and breath. We can be like the people found in verse twenty-eight, we can dance and shout, we can work ourselves up to a frenzy, to the point of exhaustion and it will all be for naught. If our efforts aren’t directed in the right direction, to the cross of Jesus Christ and our eyes aren’t focused on God the Father our actions will be nothing more that what they are on the surface, just our actions with no base or true foundation to stand upon! Because if there is no true God to receive our worship it is all just a sham and useless, words sent into the morning mist with no one to receive them.
So far we’ve been looking at this reading from 1st Kings eighteen more from a personal perspective, we have been looking at what this portion of scripture has to say to the individual but we haven’t looked at what this portion of scripture has to say to the church as a whole. This portion of scripture, this eighteenth chapter of 1st Kings is a virtual treasure chest of wealth for the church today and any pastor that is not using both the Old Testament as well as the New is missing out on a mountain of wisdom that was designed for God’s church. Lets go on to verse thirty to see what is to be found. “Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which was in ruins.” There is a reason why God used this precise wording in his Holy Scriptures, God didn’t say that Elijah just call the people together and they responded and then leave it at that. No he added a little more which adds much more to the meaning of this passage. Here the symbolism of Elijah calling the people to him is the same as God calling his church to him. When Elijah’s call to the people was made they responded by coming and once they came what did Elijah do? He repaired the altar, which was in ruins. Friend, this is what can happen to the church today if they hear the call of God and respond by coming to him after hearing that call. The church today is in disarray, it’s fractured over disputes that are attacking both from outside the church and from within at the same time. Christianity is under attack in the courts, on the streets, in the news media, by our own government, at both the state and federal levels. Legislation that places restrictions and censure on pastors and the general Christian public is being passed by our elected officials at a rate that is mind boggling to the point that even the watchdog groups can’t keep track of what is happening and happening so fast in multiple bills all at the same time. Perversions of God’s Word are being forced upon us and should we resist on the grounds of our Christian belief we are liable to law suit for expressing our said Christian belief. We are experiencing an outpouring of politicians whom no longer are concerned with the will of their constituents but rather vote and pass law after law and bill after bill solely on their own personal beliefs and like deer standing in the headlights of an on coming truck we stand there deaf, dumb and blind waiting to be hit but not moving. Within the church there is debate going on that is eating away at the very foundation of the assembly as to whether we as a people should allow people of perversion to hold office at any and all levels of the hierarchy of the institution in which they stand when God’s word is clear and precise. God wants people of sound moral character in his church at all levels, people that know and follow his decrees and not pervert them to meet their own personal desires. We see ministers behind the pulpit that express the opinion that God doesn’t even exist or if he does we need not follow his outdated rules and regulations as found in the Bible or at best pick and choose the ones we want to use and reject the rest because they go against their own personal beliefs and the society in which we live. But it doesn’t have to be this way, we as believers don’t’ have to accept this tainted outlook. “Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which was in ruins.” If we come to God again, and truly repent of our sins, as a person and as a nation, if we bend the knee and acknowledge that God is the King over our lives and that his word as given in the Bible is our rule and guide for life he will repair our altars and heal our churches. If we as a body of believers come back to God and earnestly seek his face and allow his Holy Spirit to give us direction and allow Godly wisdom to have her way in our congregations the healing will begin and strength will again return to the church and regenerate the people. God’s word tells us that this will happen, friend it’s in the Bible, it’s right there if we will take the time to look at it. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2nd Chronicles 7:14). It can happen, healing can begin, our fragmented churches can be restored, our broken altars can be repaired and God will take up residence in our land and it’s people and bless them again if we just turn to him and reject the false idols and false gods that are placed about our country. These gods aren’t real, they may be a trick of Satan but we the people have allowed them to take root in our hearts and in our churches. But the good news is that we the people can take a stand and remove them just as well, and as surely as we allowed them to be put in place. Satan doesn’t have the power or the authority to force us to follow his false gods and his false teachings and The Almighty God of all creation who does have the power to force his will upon us won’t, he’s given us free will and the ability to make decisions on our own and now it’s time we make the decision to come back to the God of our forefathers, to return to the God that brought us out of the desert and into his land of milk and honey.
I’m going to close now but before doing so I’ll leave you with two scriptures, ponder their meaning if you will for a moment, think about what they say and see if they won’t assist you in making one of the most important decisions you will ever make. The first comes from the book of James, chapter four, verse seven: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” We have the ability to resist the devil, the authority of God through the blood of Jesus Christ has given us that power, we don’t have to allow Satan to rule and reign, he was defeated by the cross and has to hide from God’s presence if we so desire to exercise our rights as children of the Living God and co-heirs with the Risen Savior. The second verse I want to leave with you is from 1st Peter, the second chapter and the ninth verse from that chapter. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are a chosen people, chosen by God to be his people, to be a royal priesthood and a people belonging to God himself, what an honor that is! And he has called us to come out of the darkness of the world and into his wonderful light, and once we see things in God’s light we will never want to return to the darkness again. That darkness didn’t just happen, it wasn’t like a light bulb was turned off and it became dark around us instantly. Satan was slipping his darkness around us little by little and with each addition of darkening sin we experienced over time we slowly became used to it, we accepted it until we were unable to see our way out. But Jesus came and his Spirit is shedding godly light everyplace he goes and God’s light is far more powerful than Satan’s darkness, all we need do is open our hearts to allow that light to filter in and illuminate our very soul. James, the brother of Jesus said it most eloquently when he, inspired by the Holy Spirit told us that God was the Father of Lights and well he is, just let that light shine in you and through you and you’ll be amazed at what can happen.
Grace & peace