Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel demonstrates that true God answers by fire, validating his prophetic authority and exposing the impotence of false gods. The sermon details Elijah's solitary stand against Ahab and the prophets, his challenge to Israel to choose between God and Baal, and the dramatic contest where God consumes Elijah's sacrifice with fire, leading the people to acknowledge the Lord as God. The core lesson is that God's power is absolute and that faithfulness to Him, even when standing alone, ultimately prevails. The message concludes by urging believers to remain consecrated and to trust God's power, even in challenging circumstances, drawing parallels to modern-day spiritual battles.
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Good evening to you all. Nice to see you tonight. That's not just a platform pleasantry. I'm glad to see you tonight. Sometimes when folks don't come, of course, of course I know pews don't cough and sneeze and drop hymn books and snore and do all those other things, but it's hard to get any kind of a response from an empty pew as well. So it's really nice to see you tonight, and we trust that we'll really enjoy the things of the Lord together. I feel the closeness of the Holy Spirit already in the songs and the prayers that we prayed earlier and we're just looking for a good time. We don't want this just to be another service. We want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May it be so for His name's sake. Now tonight I have something for you. You can pick one of these things up on the way out and that is Phil and June Morgan prayer cards. Now, when a Scotsman offers to give you something, you better pay attention because it's probably the start of the millennium. These are free for the taking. They're on the little table right near the front door, right next to where the guest book is. And I hope I brought enough. I think I did. I'm sure that there are enough cards out there, one for the husband and one for the wife. And you put these little prayer reminders wherever you have your morning devotions in your with your prayer list or in the front of your Bible or on the refrigerator door or on the breakfast table or wherever it is that you usually accost these things.
And please remember to pray for Phil and June Morgan. Since these evangelical scandals have been going on, two or three places where I've wanted to give out these prayer cards, the brethren said, they don't ask for money in them, do they? I said, no, no, no. We've already subscribed our four point eight million this month and the Lord has promised not to take us home this month. We've already had so they don't have to ask for money. They are just prayer reminders. That's all they are. You find that there's a crease and it folds and it stands up very nicely and they're on the table right near the front door as you go out. Now I know the big disadvantage is, and our brother Jim will agree with me on this, that it's a long time from the time the announcements are given until you leave the auditorium and by that time what happened forty minutes ago has all dissipated but try to remember it and if just one or two could remember stand by the door and you can shake your arthritic fingers at people like I do nobody knows who I'm pointing at when I do this but you can do that and say you didn't get a prayer card so I wanted to start Wednesday night so that hopefully by Friday night each one will have a prayer card so they're on the way out and so you'll be glad you came tonight because you got a Phil and June Morgan prayer card and you look at the picture I'm the one
on the left so that that's the way you can remember now we need to get back into our study in the book of Elijah while you're turning to it we're tonight and continuing on in chapter eighteen but our brother Gilbert mentioned relatives you know you were related to TB Gilbert he was quite right wherever I go The chairman of the meeting usually thinks he's the first one to discover that I'm J.P. Morgan, and so I'm asked to write out a sizable check for the building fund or the new chapel bus or whatever, you know. And I am not of the J.P. Morgan fame, even though usually when I see these locomotives go by, usually on every locomotive it says Morgan Guaranteed Trust Company.
That's left over from the old J.P. Morgan Empire in New York. And yet I'm not a relative of his, as far as I know. At least he never wrote to me and welcomed me as a long-lost brother. But as someone has said, as they've tried to console me in these things, well, Morgan doesn't have money, but he's wealthy, you know, in the things of the Lord. And they console me with this. They're not too impressed with that at the Windixie store. But at any rate, this is true. Now, let me give you a little secret, something that I've learned to do when somebody who comes to you and notes your name and says, are you related to whoever? In the first place, I've noted about ninety-seven percent of the people in the assemblies are all related. They have intermarried, they've got sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, and they're the biggest family, I think, in religious circles.
So most of the folks in the assemblies are interrelated, and they're relatives to somebody, but when somebody comes to you and says, are you related to so-and-so, you can say, well, how far back do you want to go? If you want to go back to Noah's Ark, we're all related, you see. By that time their heads beginning to spin and they won't bug you with any more personal family problems. That's just a little by the by. We don't charge extra for that. By this time you found First Kings chapter eighteen. We're going on reading at the point where we left off last night and that is verse number seventeen. First Kings chapter eighteen, verse number seventeen down through verse number forty. This is one of the well-known scenes of the Old Testament. This is the coming down of the fire from God upon the sacrifice at Mount Carmel in the answer to the prayer which Elijah prayed.
And you know how it goes, but let's read the Scripture again to an order that, as Peter would say, that we might stir up our pure minds by way of remembrance. First Kings chapter eighteen, verse number seventeen. It came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, that is unto Elijah, art thou he that troubleth Israel? And Elijah answered, I have not troubled Israel. but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal, four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves, four hundred, which ye did Jezebel's table.
So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long haunt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And that sounds like good logic, doesn't it? And the people answered him, not a word. I remember later on when Elijah gets discouraged, the Lord's going to say, I have yet before me seven thousand who have not yet bowed the knee to Baal. Now those seven thousand are included in this congregation. Because your Bible says all Israel was gathered together to Mount Carmel.
So there's seven thousand believers that are on the record books of God, and they're included in this congregation. But not even those believers answered him a word. Isn't that too bad? Elijah's quite alone. Just want you to see that. All right. And we pick up the story then with verse twenty-two. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, Remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them, therefore, give us two bullets, and let them choose one bullet for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And I will dress the other bullet, 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 the God that answereth by fire, let him be God." And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. Silent majority has now become rather vocal. And so we read in, let's see, and I've lost the place. Verse twenty-five, 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. And they took the bullet 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 or any that answered.
And 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 in a journey or peradventure, he sleepeth and must be awake. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets till the blood gushed out upon them. It came to pass when midday was passed, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. Isn't that a shame? And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me, and all the people came near unto him.
And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. 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. 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 would contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order. and cut the bullock in pieces and laid him on the wood and said, fill four barrels of the water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. And he said, do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, do it the third time. And they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar and he filled the trench also with water.
And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord 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. 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. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, The Lord, He is the God.
The Lord, He is the God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape. And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kaishan and slew them there. We'll end our reading with that fortieth verse. Last night when we left off, we've been considering three men and their various personalities. We've been considering Elijah, that consecrated man, and we see that he truly is a consecrated man, even though he must stand alone, somewhat like the Lord at this point, isn't he? The Lord, when he did what he had come to earth to do, was quite alone. Even his own had forsaken him and fled and so forth. And there may be sometimes, dear Christian friends, when you will have to stand alone.
It's easy to be a Christian here at Park of the Palms. because everybody is singing hymns, everybody is praying prayers, everybody has the knowledge of the word. It's easy to have a very strong Christian testimony here at the park. But maybe there are some folks who are called upon occasionally to go into the secular world, or maybe you have family reunions and you may be the only saved person in that family circle, and then you feel quite alone. The topics of conversation don't particularly interest you, and all of these other things are true. So here's Elijah, the consecrated man who stands for the Lord. Of course, he has his problems. We've seen that in our introductory lesson over in the fifth chapter of the book of James. He was a man subject to like passions as we are.
He had his ups and downs and so on and so forth, but God used him anyway, and that ought to be an encouragement to our heart. Then we had the introduction to Ahab. Terrible things are said about Ahab. We read last night in the Word of God. He did more to anger the Lord God than any of the other kings that had ever lived before him. And yet by the time you get over to First Kings chapter twenty-one and verse number twenty, you read something wonderfully well over there, at least that last section of the twenty-first chapter, First Kings. In verse twenty-five, it starts out a rather dark picture. We're over in chapter twenty-one and verse twenty-five now. The Holy Spirit says, There was none like unto Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord.
whom Jezebel his wife stirred up or incited. She goaded him and prodded him to do these particular sorts of things, you see. But the thing I want you to see in that verse is he did sell himself to work wickedness. He sold himself. Now, every living person does this. You and I sell ourselves to one cause or another or for one reason or another. The person who goes to work for a company does this. He sells his life, and he goes before the personnel director or the boss, whoever the employer might be, and they say, they don't use these words probably, but they are saying, I will give you forty hours a week out of my life, and I'll never get those forty hours back again, in return for which you will give unto me X number of dollars, and together, oh, thank you, am I time up already?
Oh, all right. I just got a glass of water. I wondered where it was when I started, but, you know, I don't complain about things, so anyway. I look at one with fear and trepidation because there was one on a pope at one place where I was preaching, and in my wild gesticulations I hid it, and I sprinkled several people in the first two or three rows, and you know, we don't believe in sprinkling. Oh, I always pushed the thing. Well, now I've forgotten where it was. I've got to go back to the beginning again. Let me read my text again. But the fellow goes before the boss and he says, I will sell a part of my life to you. That's literally what we're saying, isn't it? I will give you forty hours a week, which I will never get back again, in return for which you will give me a salary and fringe benefits and all this.
And if it's equitable to the employer and to the employee, they agree on this sort of thing, and that's what we do. We sell our lives. In that wonderful, Ninety of Psalm, it says that, we spend our years like a tale that is told. Interesting expression, isn't it? We spend our years. Apparently when we are born, God gives each of us a certain amount of currency. We would call this life or living or whatever. He gives each one of us a certain amount of currency. Now, some people get apparently a little bit of currency and they might die in infancy or maybe in their teen years or in their early twenties. Some people get a great deal of that currency and live far beyond the three-score and ten.
but we spend our years as a tale that is told. So we look at Ahab and we say, my, what a terrible man he was. He sold himself to do evil. But in another sense, you see, even the believer sells himself. He spends his currency of life. And this is what the Bible teaches. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth. You know the story. Always make sure you keep eternity's values in view, because we'll never get this time back again. We need to invest for God and hopefully to get some sort of fruit from these days and these lives and these years that we are living out because we're spending them on something. We're spending them on something. The Lord said to the rich farmer, you remember.
Farmer says, So thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thy knees, eat, drink, you know, all the sort of business. And the Lord said unto him, Thou what? Thou fool. Thou fool. The poor fellow had a tremendous problem in that his clock was awfully slow. He said, Thou hast many years. And God said, Tonight. God doesn't say he was a scoundrel, nor a scamp, nor a rascal, nor a cheat, nor immoral, nor unethical. He'd been a very wise fellow. Apparently he was a good agriculturalist. But the problem was he didn't spend any of his life currency on eternity, you see. So is everyone who is rich perhaps in this world's goods and is not rich toward God.
So Ahab, your Bible says, sold himself to do wickedness. And yet you and I have this certain amount of currency and may the Holy Spirit help us to always spend the currency of life wisely under the direction of God. So that when we stand at the judgment seat of Christ, we might be able to see through his eyes how well our currency in this life has been spent. And so we read this terrible thing about Ahab here in I Kings XXI. He did these terrible things. He did very abominably and so on and so forth. But in verse XXI, when Ahab heard these words, he rent his clothes. He put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly.
And then the word of the Lord came to Elijah. And he says, Elijah, have you seen Ahab? Look at the way he has humbled himself before me. We wouldn't expect that of Ahab. Maybe we aren't as merciful as is the Lord, you see. And the Lord says, Ahab has humbled himself before me. Therefore, I will not do these judgments in Ahab's time, but I will do these judgments in the time when his son is ruling and reigning. Oh, the magnificent mercy and grace of the Lord. The tremendous forgiveness of Lord. He's simply looking for a heart that is contrite and that breaks even the heart of such a man as a king, Ahab. Maybe someone in the audience tonight, you're still not a Christian.
You haven't ever said Lord Jesus, save me from my sin. I want you to see the tremendous mercy of the Lord. It doesn't excuse our wickedness and our weaknesses and our failings and all of these other things because we have a forgiving God, but I want you to see the mercy and the love of God. Tremendous, even in the case of Ahab. Well, that was Ahab. We had Elijah the consecrated man, and we have Ahab, the corrupted man, if you will, and then also we had this man that was introduced to us, this Obadiah, who had done a good thing for the prophets of the Lord on occasion, but he was in cahoots with Ahab and worked for him, and they went out looking for the horses and the stock, and they might water them, and you know how the whole thing went.
Well, now this brings us into our passage here in First Kings chapter eighteen, of which we began reading. That is verse number seventeen. Obadiah says, I don't want to go get Ahab because I know what will happen. I'll go get Ahab and by the time we get back here to where you used to be, you won't be here anymore because the Spirit of God will have taken you off somewhere. He had a terrible idea of how God works, doesn't he? But a lot of people who are contemporaries in this society with you and with me these days feel that same way about God. God is arbitrary. God is whimsical. God is capricious. God does what he does. He does the same thing to folks today if he did to Obadiah. Obadiah says, I'm going to get out on a limb, and then for some reason or other, the limb's going to be sought off behind me.
And some people think that way about God today. Think that God just enjoys going around making trouble for people. Or as the little girl said in Sunday school, God is someone who, when he sees somebody enjoying himself, he says, now you cut that out. And that's what adults think today. Nothing could be farther from the truth, is it? So Elijah said, don't worry, Obadiah. I'll be here. You go get Ahab. I want to talk to him. I'll be here when you and Ahab come back. And he was. And that's where we pick up the thread of the story. Immediately, you see, Ahab takes the offensive. And he says, you know, Elijah, you know, you're just making trouble for everybody.
Are thou he the trouble of Israel? And then Elijah throws the same words right back at King Ahab again, and he says, I'm not the one that troubleth Israel. You're the one that troubleth Israel and so forth. And, of course, that is exactly right. But again, if you will, in nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, this goes on. Now we have evangelicals in the world of politics today, and we have evangelicals in Congress, and I suppose in Parliament, and we have evangelicals in the business world, and many of them, thank the Lord, are trying to cause their Christian witness to be felt, and it scares an unsaved world. I always enjoy reading in the newspaper when somebody says we want prayer back in school or some other sort of a thing, the liberal columnists get all bent out of shape, as the kids would say.
And immediately they start thinking about prohibition and bathtub gin all over again. They're going to throw us right back to the times of Queen Victoria. It's going to be a terrible thing. The malls won't be open on Sunday anymore. All these other sorts of things. They don't care what you and I do in these four walls, but they don't want us to do it outside these four walls. And this is the situation here. Christians go around making trouble for everybody. And this is the thinking in nineteen hundred and eighty-eight. You see, this may be way back in the Old Testament, but it's as up to date as the newspaper that you read today. And the King Ahab's of the world are still saying the same things to God's Elijah's today. You folks just go around making a lot of trouble for everybody.
Trying to get prayer back into the school. That has never worried me one iota. They can't get prayer out of the schools. Every time there's an examination in the local schools, there's more prayer that goes up from those classrooms, and the Supreme Court or Madeline Murray O'Hare or anybody else can't get the prayer out of the schools. I've never worried about that. I've never worried about that. Probably the roof comes up three or four inches for all the prayers that are ascending. Lord, if you ever worked a miracle, work a miracle now, and help me pass this test. You know how it goes if you can remember that far back. Well, at any rate, what kind of trouble? Back in Psalm number hundred and forty-six in verse number nine, it says, The way of the wicked, he turneth upside down.
Then you come over to the seventeenth chapter of the book of Acts in verse number six, and the testimony concerning Paul and his companions were these that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also. So you have the world turned upside down in Psalm one hundred and forty-six, and when Paul and his Christian companions coming along with their gospel story and their missionary enterprise, what they are doing is setting the world right side up, But the world has gotten used to being upside down, so everybody looks upside down to them when they're really right side up. You see how it works. Bill, would you run that past us again? I would if I could, but I can't. You understand how it works. The world is used to being upside down, dear friends. And a Christian comes along and says, but people are supposed to be the children of God.
People are supposed to be in such a state that God is their heavenly Father. People are supposed to have daily fellowship with the living God of heaven. This is the way God, He didn't create us to be sinners, He created us to have eternal fellowship with Him. And when somebody gets saved, He doesn't become some sort of abnormal or subnormal person. Now He is in the very place that God has created Him to be, you see. But this upside down world in which you and I live doesn't recognize that they've gotten so used to being upside down when somebody gets saved and gets right side up. They say, my friend, you are totally upside down. And you see, it's Ahab who comes to Elijah who says, you have caused all the trouble that we find.
And Elijah says, no, Ahab, you have caused all the trouble. And what I'm trying to get you to see is the same sort of principles are applied to Christians in this age in which you and I live yet today. Same thing is true. Christians get blamed for things, don't they? Well, we don't have to look at that anymore. But this trouble is mentioned here in verse number eighteen. Elijah answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house, and that you have, ah, here's the problem. You have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now, see, that's the way it works. That's the way it works in human lives today. I don't think anybody ever very suddenly backslides. They don't just go off into gross sin.
It started way back under somewhere because they don't follow until there has been a forsaking that has preceded the following. You and your fathers have done this. So Elijah says to Ahab, in first place you have forsaken God and his teaching, and once that has occurred, then you're following in the ways of Baal. And that's the way the same thing occurs today. This is what the Lord says. Remember in Jeremiah chapter two, verse thirteen, isn't it? My people have committed two evils. They have, what, forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and then they have hewed them out, cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
And that's the way it is. A person goes on living some way. He follows some sort of philosophy. If he's not following in the way of the Lord, he's following in something else. He never lives in a vacuum. He is doing something, doing something. You have forsaken and then you have followed this sort of a thing. Second Timothy chapter four and verse number ten. Paul says about Demas, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. Now it's interesting. Sometimes you can ask especially young people and you say, what did Demas do after he forsook Paul? And you get some horrible, horrible descriptions of the sort of a fellow Demas became.
Well, they said he went out and established a nightclub. Well, he became a disco. He became a drug pusher. He became a white slaver. He did the Bible doesn't say all that, does it? Demas, dear friends, could very well have stayed in religious service. He certainly was well qualified for it. He'd been taught by the best of them. He could have simply remained in some sort of religious service, some sort of religious circle, if you will. but not with the Apostle Paul, not according to New Testament teaching. But we always assume the worst about Demas, and the Bible never says anything like that about Demas. It's simply the matter, Paul says, he had forsaken me because he loved this present world. And yet he could very well have stayed in religious service, you see.
Not Christian service primarily, but religious service. So you're forsaken, and so on and so forth. So we have in verse number twenty-one, as we pointed out earlier, If they'll be God, then follow Him. And the people, not even the seven thousand, that still hadn't bowed the knee to Him, not even they said anything. And that was a real shame. Not even they said anything. And this sort of a thing. I want you to notice. Well, let me just read for you. Ephesians chapter five and verse nineteen. I want you to see that Christians are supposed to be vocal sorts of people. And spirit-led, spirit-filled Christians will be. The book of Ephesians chapter five. Verse number eight, you know, Ephesians five eight says, Be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess, but be filled or be constantly being filled with the Holy Spirit.
And the next two verses go on to tell you how this spiritual Christian will act and how that person will manifest himself or herself. Verse nineteen, this spirit-controlled person will speak to themselves or yourselves, if you will, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. I know some Christians that are afraid to be controlled today by the Holy Spirit, for fear of the Holy Spirit will make them do some sort of crazy emotional thing. They're sort of like Obadiah. I know what the Spirit of God does. The Spirit of God does strange things. This is never the teaching of the Word of God. It sounds like verse nineteen would be a nice experience for a Christian to have, to be a spirit-filled, spirit-controlled Christian.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I like that. That's perhaps the only ministry that you can have. Maybe, brother, no one will ever ask you to come up onto a platform and lead the congregation in prayer. Maybe no one will ever ask you to give a public Bible study of any sort. But here's a ministry that everybody can have. And I like congregational singing. I never like to hear it referred to as the preliminaries. There's nothing preliminary in the service of the Lord. When we are singing, we are speaking to ourselves in sounds and hymns and spiritual songs. And I like the teaching of the Holy Spirit here because he also recognizes those who can't sing.
You know the ones that can't sing. I don't want you to turn and look at anybody. But you know the ones that can't sing. My own grandmother couldn't sing. And as a kid, I couldn't understand how a person couldn't sing. Songlier would say, let's all stand and sing. And grandmother would stand. And I had to be with grandmother because my mother was at the piano and my father was the songlier. So if my dad said, stand up, Phil Morgan was the first one out of his feet. I'll tell you that. And I had to be with my grandmother. My grandmother would turn to the appropriate hymn. And sometimes I could see her lips going. But most of all, she'd just read through the words as the rest of the folks are singing. I'd say, grandmother, sing. And she says, I can't sing. Well, everybody can sing. Well, no, everybody can't sing. You're a rotten kid.
Sit down and be quiet. My grandmother couldn't sing, but the Holy Spirit took her into account because, according to this word, she could sing and make melody in her heart to the Lord. And I think that's what she was doing. That's a spirit-controlled Christian, a singing Christian. Singing in the heart or singing with a voice, however you happen to be equipped, but at least you're a singing Christian. Verse number twenty, we mustn't spend much time on this. Verse twenty, is also an appreciative Christian, giving thanks always for all things, not just the things we like, but all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't sound to me like there's anything to be afraid of to be a spirit-controlled Christian.
It sounds like a nice sort of an experience to me, and so it is. But this is what he has said. Where is the seven thousand Elijah might well have said? Going to find out later that there were seven thousand of them in the group here, you see. But Elijah is quite alone. Well, then you know, first of all, he had what kind of trouble. Now we have some sort of testing that goes on here. Look at the confidence. We'll run through these things. A whole group of C's, if you will. Look at the confidence. Verse number nineteen. Therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel and the prophets of Baal, four hundred and fifty and the prophets of the gross four hundred who eat at Jezebel's table. There's confidence. that the man of God, the person of God, can confidently stand before a world in a test situation, even though the Christian might be the only one in the particular situation.
And sometimes Christians have to stand quite alone. But don't be afraid of it. You're in good company. The Apostle Paul says, All have forsaken me and fled. They all forsook the Lord Jesus Christ and fled. Many times prophets were quite alone when they had to deliver the messages that God wanted them to give. Sometimes they were stoned to death. Sometimes they were thrown into pits. Sometimes they were horribly ignored. And many times the people of God have had to stand quite alone. And you and I in the days to come may have to do it quite again in this situation. So there's a confidence in verse nineteen. There's a conviction in verse number twenty-one and also in verse number twenty-four. Elijah says quite simply, well, let's decide once and for all who's God and whichever one turns out to be God, let's serve him.
Is that all right with you folks? They said, that sounds like a good idea. That's verse number twenty-one and also verse number twenty-four. Now, that's conviction. In verse number thirty, you have another C, and that's construction. Unfortunately, the altar of the Lord had fallen down or probably had been desecrated and destroyed by Jezebel. So something has to be rebuilt before the sacrifices can begin again. Sometimes you and I have to stop and rebuild altars. I think that's called revival. We have to go back and put the stones up again, the way the Lord said, put the stones up, and the ones for whom the stones stood, and we have to do things according to the situation in God. Over in the New Testament, you read about fishermen with their nets.
Not only did they cast their nets, not only did they dry their nets, but you also find them over there on occasion they had to mend their nets. Every once in a while, a Christian will have to stop and mend his or her nets. We've allowed something to get in it. It's torn a big hole. There's too many fish escaping through it. And time has to be taken to mend the net. Here, time has to be taken to repair the altar, you see. Put it back again. the construction. Verse number thirty, again, dear Elijah apparently had to do the whole work all by himself. None of the seven thousand said, well, I can't help cut up the bullet, but I can carry a stone or two.
Apparently Elijah did the whole thing all by himself. Verse number thirty, he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. There's a calling mentioned next. Next, that's in verse number twenty-six. He said, you fellows go first because there's more of you than there is of me. Verse number twenty-six, and they began to call on Baal from morning even until noon. And the last part of the verse has always struck my heart particularly. The Holy Spirit says there was no voice or any that answered. To me, that's a very sad thing. But this is happening today. People are calling on different ways of life and philosophies and gods that they have chosen, but there isn't any to answer.
And there isn't any to hear. Now that's in verse twenty-six. Now the same thing is repeated in verse twenty-nine, but something more is added to it there. In verse twenty-nine the same words are used. There was neither voice. Well, you've read that before in verse twenty-six. There was none to answer. You've read that before in twenty-six. But now this more is added, nor any who even regarded. Nor any who have even regarded. What a shame. We as Christians pray unto the living God of heaven. His ear is always open unto our cry, but there are people today who are trusting in something or someone that has no answer, has no heart, has no hearing, has no knowledge, has no wisdom, and not only are there none to hear, but there isn't even any that regard.
What a shame. What a shame that is. People are hopelessly lost, and yet they're trusting in something that has absolutely no answer to them or for them. You may recall from Jewish history when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, and they set it up, your Bible says, in the house of their god, Dagon. The bottom part of Dagon was fish, and the top part looked like a man. And when they went into the house of Dagon, the next morning, Dagon was falling on his face, and so they propped him back up again. You might know something is wrong if you have to prop up your gods. That ought to be a tip-off right there. Well, the same thing happened. You remember the next night. The second morning they went in, and Dagon was on his face again, and now his hands had been broken off, and his head was broken off.
And your Bible says the only part that was left was the stump. Now, sometimes it's translated, the only part that was left was the fishy part. If I'd been a Philistine, I would have begun to smell a fish too along about that situation. If I have to keep putting my God up on his pedestal, this proves that I'm stronger than he is, and there's something wrong with that picture if I have to keep propping him up. And that's the situation here. It's a sad note, dear friends. There was none to hear, and there wasn't even anybody who regarded the situation. And yet these folks are jumping on and off the altar. They're cutting themselves with their knives and their lances, and your Bible says blood is all over the place.
And then, of course, Elijah goads them. I don't know about it. Some have tried to prove that Elijah has a sense of humor here. I know if I tried something like that, I'd end up with a bloody nose probably. But Elijah gets in and he uses irony or sarcasm or humor or whatever you're satisfied with. And he says, you guys better shout a little louder. You know, your God's a long ways from here. And they obeyed Elijah. They did this. Worked themselves up into a terrible frenzy. And that's the calling there. Verse twenty-six and verse thirty-six and verse thirty-seven. And then you notice the consecration here. Verse number thirty-one, Elijah took these twelve stones, set them up according to the tribes of Israel, as God had told his people to do. And then also in verse thirty-three and thirty-four, he put the wood in order, cut the bullock in pieces, laid him on the altar and so on and so forth, and did everything exactly right, put twelve barrels of water on the sacrifice, around the sacrifice, all of these sorts of things.
The question came up at a Bible study one time. The men of Baal hadn't used their bullock. He was still on their altar. Why wasn't Elijah a little more conservative and said, well, as long as you fellas haven't used your animal of sacrifice, I'll just use him and we can keep this one alive. You notice he didn't do that. He left the bullet that was Baal's bullet upon the altar and he slew the other bullet, God's bullet, and put him on the altar. I think there's a strong spiritual principle there. And that is, God doesn't need something that the world gives to Him. Now that's important, I think, these days, because in some circles, some evangelical circles, we feel the only way to do the will and the work of God is that we have to copy Hollywood.
And the church can't out Hollywood, Hollywood, neither should it even try. But we say, well, we know you're using this bullet that's already alive. We'll use the one that's already dead. And it won't work in the things of God. A man named Samuel approached the king one time, and the king, like Ahab, took the offensive and said, I have utterly done everything that God wanted me to do. And then the man of God Samuel says, you remember those words? What meaneth then? The bleeding of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen in my ears? Those dumb sheep and those dumb oxen, they'll always blab at the wrong time. It's an embarrassment. It's an embarrassment. And he says, You have not done what God wanted you to do fully. And remember Saul, King Saul said, Ah, I have kept the best.
Really, he said, The people have kept the best. The people have kept the best for God. But when God has utterly condemned certain things, there isn't any best in those things to be given to God. And we need to spread that news these days. Church is trying to out-distance Hollywood, and dear friends, it's simply not working. We're entertaining people, but people aren't getting saved and edified. It's simply not being done. Remember over in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of the Acts, there was a young woman who followed Paul and his companions, and everything she said was absolutely true. These are the men of the Most High God who have come to show us the way of salvation. There isn't anything wrong with anything, she said, except that she was demon-possessed.
And after a while, Paul turned around and cleansed the demon out of her by the power of God. Why? She wasn't saying anything wrong. No, exactly not. But God doesn't need the devil to promote God's business, you see. And so here, Elijah takes time to prepare God's bullet, even though the bullet of Baal is totally unused. He says, we don't need that sort of thing. That needs to be promoted these days. That's the consecration. The consuming, as you'll notice, is in verse thirty-eight and thirty-nine. The consuming fire falls after this very simple prayer. Elijah didn't pray and scream and holler and cut himself for six or seven or eight hours. He simply prayed a little prayer. Now, Lord, we want to see a demonstration of who and of what you are.
And you know the fire came down, consumed the sacrifice, consumed the wood, consumed the stones, if you will, and looked up the water that was around about in the dust, and then it looked up the dust. And truly the thing was done. And the people says, the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. But then there is a consequence. That's the last seed. There is a consequence. And that is the Lord says, Now gather up all the prophets of Baal. Don't let one of them escape. Took them down to the bank of the Brook Keyshawn. And there they had to pave with their lives for their dedication to the false God. That's a very well-known passage of Scripture, the falling of the fire of God from heaven. I think we would be like the fellow who once visited the grave of Dwight L.
Moody, and he was seen to put his hands on the gravestone and said, God, do it again. God, do it again. I think we would agree with that tonight. God, do it again. Shall we pray? Our Father, we have been studying the Word of God now and taking it into our minds and we hope into our hearts. And, Father, we would be careful not to be like the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill who gather for nothing else than to hear it to tell some new thing. We don't want to restudy, Father, the things that we've studied many times over. But, Father, we would know that the Bible is the living word of God and that thou has something in it for us in these days that is new and fresh and exciting and up-to-date and speaks to our particular spiritual lives where they happen to be this moment.
Now, Father, we commit and commend the outcome of the meeting to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that he might continue to apply the hearts to our lives And that, Father, he might find it easy to work with us and among us and through us and for us. Father, we pray these things all of much thanksgiving in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.