Nicholson, J B: Mountains Of The Old Testament-05 ~ Elijah At Mount Carmel

Well, good morning everyone again. We've, uh, kept our overhead, and, uh, hopefully it will be a little helpful to us to see, see things in, uh, uh, visually as well as verbally. And, uh, this morning I'd like to think with you a little bit about, uh, an incident in the life of Elijah, and I'd like to turn there, please, with you. First Kings and chapter eighteen. First Kings chapter eighteen, and we're going to read in at verse seventeen. First Kings eighteen and verse seventeen. And it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he 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 the baals. Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal 450, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at 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 halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord, if Jehovah be God, follow him, but if Baal, follow him. And the people answered him, not a word. 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 bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on wood and put no fire under, 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 the God that answers by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, well spoke. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first, for ye are many, and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped on the altar which was made, and it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he's a god. Either he's talking, or he's pursuing, or in a journey, or perhaps he's sleeping and must be awakened. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass when midday was past, and they prophesied till the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. 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 them on the, on the wood, and said, fill four barrels with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. And he said, do it again, 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, thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy, and that I have done all these things at thy word. O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again, 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 Kishon and slew them there. And Elijah said unto Ahab, get thee up, eat, drink, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. High drama, isn't it? I tell you, um, we wouldn't have anybody sleep through the meeting if, if we could do something like this every, every time. Well, um, I've drawn a rather crude picture here of the, the land of Israel. After the, um, torturous coastline, as you work your way around Greece and Turkey, uh, the schoolboy, with some relief, finally comes to the Israeli coast. It's just a long, sweeping J that makes its way all the way down to the, um, delta of the Nile River. But there's one ba- big bump on the coast, and that's where the Carmel Mountains run out to the sea. Now you'll see the major mountain spine, as we mentioned. The, the land of Israel is in four geographical strips running north and south. Narrow strips. You have the coastal plain, the plains of Philistia, called the Gaza Strip today in the south, which ran all the way up to Joppa, about here, and then from that point up, uh, to the Carmel Mountains, you had the Plains of Sharon. Some people subdivide that again and call this little area the Crocodile Swamps up here, but the Plains of Sharon, and then north of the Carmel Range, you have this area, sometimes referred to as the Plains of Asher, because they were given to Asher, although Asher never took them by faith. Zebulun, in the center of the country, pushed out and took this territory, and so today they're called the Plains of Zebulun. In fact, if you go to Haifa, you'll see the main shipping company in Haifa Harbor is the Zebulun Shipping Company. Uh, then you have the mountain spine, and uh, you have the Upper and the Galilee range, the broken hills of the lower Galilee. This is Mount Tabor and the hill of Moreh. And then you have the Samaritan Hills, beginning with Mount Gilboa, which is the little point that sticks out into the Jezreel Valley, the valley, this is the valley of Armageddon, and uh, then down through the Samaritan Hills until you come to just north of the city of Jerusalem. If you draw a line straight across from the north end of the Dead Sea, you'll hit the city of Jerusalem in the mountains here. So this section is, uh, there's a, there's a fault that runs through the mountains here that subdivides, uh, Samaria from Judea, and then south of that, the Judean Highlands, they dribble off down into the nu- the, the desert, the Negev. There is a section in here in the s- in the south between the, um, the coastal plain and the central highlands, referred to as the Shefala, the, the Midlands, we might call them. Uh, they were the hill, the hill country, uh, between the land of Philistia and the land and the, um, the mountains. And many of the dramas that occur in, especially in Samuel and Kings, occurred in this territory. It was the buffer zone between the, the Philistines on the coast and the Israelites up in the mountains. And there were five finger valleys that ran up through the, the Shephelah. You have the, uh, Upper Beth-horon Pass, which runs through to Bethel, and then you have the Valley of Ajalon, which runs up to the city of Jerusalem, and then you have the Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath, and the Valley of Sorek, where Samson fought, and then, uh, the Lachish Valley further to the south. And these, these became a kind of natural roadways that ran from the coast up to, uh, the highlands, up to the cities in the mountains. Well, then you drop dramatically. This is a gentle slope running up to the peaks, but once you pass the peak, it just, uh, drops off like, almost like a cliff from the highlands down here. So at Jerusalem, you're two thousand five hundred feet above sea level, Twenty miles away at the Dead Sea, you're one thousand two hundred ninety two feet below sea level. So you're dropping, uh, when, when Jesus said a man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, he wasn't kidding. If you trip going out of Jerusalem, you don't stop till you hit Jericho. It's just like that all the way down, you see? That means when you're standing on the Mount of Olives here and looking over Jerusalem in the wintertime, it may be snowing in Jerusalem on this side of the mountain, and down here at Jericho, it's one hundred and ten in the shade, twenty miles away, all because of altitude. So you have this, this is the, this is the north end of the great African Rift Valley, which begins in Central Africa, and one arm of it comes right up through a great fault in the Earth's surface, runs right up through, um, this section, right up into the Lebanon. And you have, of course, the headwaters of the Jordan way up at the north here, which are the runoff from Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon is the border here to this day between Syria and Lebanon and Israel, and um, you have the Banias and the Dan and the Hasbani. They flow together and uh, form this little lake, which now is drained. It's just a little swamp, uh, a nature preserve, Lake Hula, sometimes called Trachonitis on some of your maps. And then the Upper Jordan, which dr- drops dramatically to the dead s- to the Sea of Galilee, and already we're seven hundred and fifty feet below sea level. And then from the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan continues. It means, Jordan means descender, and it's dropping all the way until we hit the Dead Sea. And of course, there's no exit from the Dead Sea, and so the only way for the water to leave is by evaporation. And about three million gallons of water a day evaporate out of the Dead Sea, leaving all of these alluvial silts, which continually enrich the Dead Sea and provide these mineral salts, which they use extensively in their agriculture. On the other side of the, um, of the Jordan now, you come into what was enemy territory. Now you can remember GAME, Gilead, Ammon, Moab, and Edom. All right? The land of Gilead runs between these two rivers. You'll notice this is a plateau, and wherever the rivers cut in, they form a natural boundary. And so just south of the Sea of Galilee, you have the Yarmuk River, which today divides Israel. These are the Golan Heights up here. Now, Golan is Bashan. Golan was the city of refuge, but Bashan, remember the bulls of Bashan? This was cowboy country. This was the Texas of Israel. Uh, Manasseh had their herds up here, and, and this river now cuts between Israel, which controls the Golan Heights, and the land of Jordan. Um, so this river made a natural boundary. This was the land of, uh, Sihon and Og, you remember? And Moses took this territory from them. And then, um, south of this was the, the land of Gilead. Now, the reason you read about this, is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Uh, because you'll notice the only cut through the mountains was right here, where the rain-laden winds would come in and come travel along the Jezreel Valley and were actually able to get through to fall on this section, uh, on the other side of the Jordan. Now, it's just like a greenhouse. It's a, it's a hothouse climate, and so they could grow their aromatic spices there, which they used. It was kind of their natural pharmacy, and uh, so the, the cry goes out, is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? The land of Gilead, which was the land of Gad, this was the territory given to the Gad, the tribe of Gad, and then south of this, this is the Jabbok River. It was at the fort of Jabbok that Jacob wrestled with the angel, remember that? And just a little further up is the town of Mahanaim. Uh, Jacob named it that. It means, what, Two, two troops, two groups, because they're the angels of God met him, you remember, and he divided his group into two. Uh, he called it Mahanaim, and that was David's court in exile when he was driven from Jerusalem, uh, by Absalom. We cross over that, and we come into the land of, um, Ammon. Now, Amman, Jordan today, is right about here. This is ancient Ammon, the Ammonites. Remember the riddle? Long ago, two boys were born, each was the brother of the other one's mother, and their father was their grandfather? Their mothers were not only their mothers, they were their sisters, their sisters-in-law, their aunts, and their grandmothers. And their... Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive, right? Lot by his two daughters. Now you understand they were the, the boys' mothers, of course, because they bore the children, but they were also their grandmothers because they were married to their grandfather, who was their mother's father. And then, uh, they were their aunts, of course, because they were their mother's sisters, and, uh, well, so it goes. But anyway, the two boys were Ammon and, or Ben Ami and, and Moab. And these were the two illegitimate sons of Lot, and they were constant plagues to the children of Israel. And so you have the territory of Ammon, Amman, Jordan. Uh, that was the city, you remember, that, uh, David sent Joab down to destroy. That's when he was caught with his armor off, and uh, and what happened was eventually, um, he sent Uriah the Hittite down, and that's where Uriah was killed, at the city of Amman. But then south of that, you have Moab, the land of Moab. The Moabites controlled these mountains here. This is where Moses was buried. This is where he viewed the land afar off, and uh, uh, these are the li- the plains of Moab, this little widening of the Jordan Valley here, where the children of Israel encamped just before they crossed over. This is where Balaam stood and tried to curse the people, and God reprogrammed them, and out came some of the most wonderful blessings in the Bible. And uh, and then south of this river, this is the Arnon. The Arnon runs just about halfway along the Dead Sea, and uh, south of the Arnon is now the land of Edom, Esau's territory, and it was called in Bible times, the New Testament times, Idumea. You remember that, um, Herod the Great was an Idumean, an Edomite. So there we have it, and we've been looking at some of the mountains here. This is, this is Mount Hebron, kind of sticks out from the main spine. Hebron sits here, and the road kind of curves around to Beersheba in the south. And, uh, here's Mount Ebal and Gerizim in the middle, and the road comes up here and cuts through. This is the Vale of Shechem, and then runs up through, and there's one mountain right in the middle here, and that's the hill of Samaria, the city of Samaria. Dothan sits on the edge here. This was where the mount- the mountains were ringed about with the, the, uh, chariots of heaven, uh, in the days when the hit squad from Syria came over to kill Elisha. Um, and as I mentioned, Gilboa and, uh, the hill of Moreh, Mount Tabor, and then Nazareth sits right here on this little peninsula. It's the last of the Galilean, uh, uh, mountains, and, uh, when the- they took the Lord Jesus at thirty years of age, and they were going to throw him over into the valley and stone him to death. What valley was it? That was the Valley of Armageddon. He had just truncated one of the prophecies that said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, the recovery of sight to the blind, and so on. And you left off the last phrase, which says, and the day of vengeance of our God. Where's that going to happen? Right in the valley where they tried to throw him. And in grace, he moved through their midst and carried on his gracious ministry. As he said, I came not to judge the world, to condemn the world, I came to save the world on his first journey. We'll think about that a little bit later this morning. Now, what we're thinking about is this Carmel range. Now, the valley that cuts through there, the Iran Pass, comes right through to the city of Megiddo. There's a place up here we sometimes visit. It's called Muhraqa, a little Druze village, and this is the traditional site where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal. We go there not because of the traditional site, but because they have a nice platform, and you can stand out looking across the Jezreel Valley, and every inch is a Bible story. You can see from the Mediterranean almost over to the Jordan. On a clear day, you can see right up to Mount Hermon. And you can see, uh, as you travel around this, this valley, I mean, uh, you think of all the Bible stories that occurred in this, in this bowl here. Napoleon was here. He called it the cockpit of the world. And all of the great armies of the ancient world fought in this valley. So as you look up the coast, uh, this is, uh, this little bump here is where Tyre is, Tyre and Sidon. This is where Jezebel came from. She came down and lived with Ahab in Jezreel, right in the middle of the valley. The city of Jezreel is actually the watershed. Everything from Jezreel this way is the Kishon River Valley. You read about the Kishon, that's where they slew the prophets of Baal. The Kishon drains this end out to the Mediterranean, and everything from this point, from Jezreel east, is the, uh, Harod River Valley. It was at the spring of Harod at the foot of Mount Gilboa that Gideon chose his mighty men. Remember that? And the Harod River runs out to the Jordan. So Jezreel sits right in the middle there. So we think about Ahab and Naboth's Vineyard, of course, the Lord Jesus at Nazareth, Mount Tabor, we'll be thinking about that later this week, um, where, um, Barak and Deborah fought, uh, Sisera, the Hill of Moreh where Gideon fought the Midianites, Mount Gilboa where Saul and Jonathan fought the Philistines. Uh, Dothan is the place where Joseph was sold into slavery. I mean, you know, you can just go on for a long time thinking about all the stories that swirl around this little valley. So we've got a bit of an idea now where we're talking. Elijah is here, uh, overlooking the Mediterranean, and that explains one factor in the story. Of course, there's been a drought for three and a half years, and some people have said, well, come on now, uh, my credulity has been stretched beyond the limit here. There's been no water, that's the problem. And now Elijah says, fill up four barrels of water and pour it on the sacrifice. Another four barrels, another four barrels. Come on now, where'd the water come from? Well, of course, it came from the Mediterranean. Lots of salt water, the problem was you couldn't drink it, but you could pour it over the sacrifice. And so this was the spot where the battle of the gods takes place. So let's think a little bit now about the story, and uh, it would be good for us to go back in the story and think about this uh, showdown, this meeting between uh, a man who probably was a believer in the true God. His name is Obadiah, not the prophet Obadiah, but the um... We read in verse uh, four of chapter eighteen about this man Obadiah. He's governor of, of Jezebel's house, um, and we read that he took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifty in a cave and fed them with bread and water. But, you know, when they meet, when Obadiah and Elijah meet, it's quite obvious that there's a bit of a, a jarring note. There's a, there's a shock there. Now, one of the great things about Christian fellowship is that if you're walking with God and I'm walking with God, we can meet each other every five years, and it's just like we never said goodbye. Isn't that a great thing? I mean, I think I felt like Rich Bishop. I've, I've probably spent, uh, two weeks in his presence over the years, but I walk into his life, and it's just like I never said goodbye. Now, the world can't do that. If they get together, if they were in the war together, all they can do is talk about the war, because all we like sheep have gone astray. See, the world, they're just scattering. They're always becoming, as we heard the other day, increasingly alienated. But the people of God, we are bound together in the same bundle of life. We follow the same guidebook, we f- we walk with the same Lord, we meet at the same throne of grace. We're interested in the same things, we're involved in the same battle, and so Paul takes up these words. He says, your fellow laborers, fellow soldiers, fellow workers, fellow, fellow, fellow, all these wonderful terms that describe this fellowship that we presently enjoy. And so I walk out of some Christian's life, and years later I step back into it, it's just like we've never said goodbye. It's wonderful, isn't it? But when a Christian is not walking with the Lord and you come together, there's a, a sense of unease about the whole thing. And that's what we sense when, uh, these two come together. Uh, you'll notice first of all, in verse three, uh, Obadiah's half-hearted association. Verse three of chapter eighteen says, now Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house, in brackets, now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. So he he's linked with Ahab, and he's linked with the Lord here, and and he's in this this netherworld, and he's not quite sure where his loyalty lies. And you see it come out a little bit later when, um, when Elijah falls down before him and calls him my lord. Uh, verse seven, He fell on his face and said, art thou that my lord, Elijah? And in verse eight, Elijah says to him, I am. Go tell thy lord. I mean, Obadiah, although he was the governor of Ahab's house, and Elijah was living out like a destitute vagabond, he knew who his superior was. He knew the man with moral stature, and he falls down at his feet and calls him my Lord. He says, you go talk to your Lord. You know, there's a great delight in having a single eye. When the Bible says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, that is when you put yourself into a situation where you've got to go the world's way, and that's what a yoke does, forces you to go the same way. When you put yourself in that situation, you give up soul rest. You know, now Lot, when he moved into Sodom, thought no doubt that he'd have an influence for good there, but we learned from the New Testament that he lost his soul rest. He was daily vexed with the ungodly conversation of the wicked. He lost his material goods. He went in a rich man, and he came out with a shirt on his back. He lost his, his soul rest, his peace of heart, and he lost his family. Easier to get Lot's family out of Sodom than it was to get Sodom out of Lot's family, wasn't it? So we see this, this shocking, um, collision between these two, uh, men who both believed in the Lord, but one had compromised his position. You see, he has, um, not only a half-hearted association with the Lord there, but a- an earthbound occupation. You would think by at this point, with three and a half years of the judgment of God on the land of Israel, that instead of seeking grass, they'd be seeking God. They'd be having prayer meetings. But here's Ahab and Obadiah walking around looking for some good grass for Ahab's stud farm. The scripture says, who mined earthly things. That was his occupation. And then he runs into Elijah, and Elijah says, you go get your master. You'll notice, um, the, the fear in the heart of this man. If you don't fear the Lord, then you'll fear men, you see? And the fear of man is the snare. How much witnessing we don't do because of the fear of man? I think to myself, well, if I witness to him, he won't think much of me. As they say, we wouldn't worry what people think of us if we realize how little they did. This per- this person's not going to go home that evening and sit there and think, wow, you know, this guy really was a dud. I mean, the important thing is not what they think of me, the important thing is what do they think of Christ? It won't matter a hill of beans what they think of me. It will matter an eternity what they think of Christ. I remember reading a story of a fellow who grew up in a little town in the, in the mountains of, uh, West Virginia, and he said, you know, there was a chicken hawk that used to soar high up in the sky, and every once in a while he'd, he'd come down and he'd take a, a chicken for his breakfast. He said, you know, that chicken hawk flew so close to heaven that he feared no man. He said, oh God, make me like that chicken hawk. To recognize that no matter who these people are, they're just men, like Nehemiah, who was going in to see Artaxerxes Longimanus, the long arm of the law, a man who ruled the whole world. And he says, Lord, uh, I'm going to s- you know, I'm, I'm willing to do this, and give me acceptance in the sight of this man. He reminded himself that whatever this man was, he was just a man. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge, a fountain of life. The fear of man brings a snare. And you see that fear in the, in the heart of Obadiah in verse twelve, the end of the verse. He says, um, I'm afraid that the spirit of the Lord is going to carry you away on me, and when I come with Ahab and he can't find you, he'll kill me. But, but I, thy ser- servant, fear the Lord from my youth. Yeah, right. The, the fear of man had overcome the fear of the Lord there. Now, it's easy for me to preach this, another thing to live it, isn't it? Nonetheless, uh, to be, to be aware of being in the presence of the Lord, to be aware that the Lord is there with all his resources. You know, when the Lord is with me, he's not spying on me. Sometimes we get that impression, like, uh, he's standing watching our s- oh, did it again. Now cut that out. When, when the Lord is standing by, when his eyes are on me, he's there to provide resources. He's there. Here, try this, Nicholson. You know? He's there to encourage me and help me. He's not there just to spy on me and slap my hands when I don't do it right. He's standing there, uh, en- enriching me and providing for me, encouraging me to be faithful to him. Well, when Ahab and and um Elijah finally meet, Ahab says to Elijah, well, here you are, troubler of Israel. Well, excuse me, said Elijah. I'm not the troubler. You're the one who causes trouble. Isn't that the way in society today? You know, the majority of the people in, in this pagan society would be so happy for the rapture to get you Christians out of their hair, won't they? They won't miss us. They'll be glad to see us go. Good riddance. That's their attitude. Art thou he that troubles, troubles Israel? Oh no, he says, and that's, that's what the world wants to do. They want to give us the impression like we're the ones who are causing trouble. I- I'm really sorry to tell you about this, you know, I mean, I hope you're not offended by it all, and so on. We get so defensive. It's like going to somebody's house, the house is burning down, they're in bed, and we go and tap at the door and finally go in and say, look, I'm really sorry to inconvenience you and all, and I don't mean to embarrass you, I don't mean to be rude, but your house is burning down. I mean, you open the door, you go, get out of there, man, you know? And and we have this attitude like, ooh, really, I'm really sorry to be offensive, and I don't, I, you know, please don't take this the wrong way and all, but Christ died for you. He wants to save you, wants to take you to heaven, and you're in danger of hellfire. You know, burglar alarms and fire alarms are supposed to be raucous. You don't get them to play Beethoven's Fifth, you know. They're supposed to wake you up. They're supposed to frighten you a bit. They're supposed to stir you up and, and stir you to action. And yes, we do trouble Israel. Our purpose in life is to wake up people, to in- to, to make them aware of their, of their desperate situation. But, says Elijah, please understand, the trouble is because of your sin. It's sin that troubles the human race. That's where the problem lies. Now, uh, I don't know if some of you know my friend John Biorle. He and I work together at Gospel Folio. Um, he tells me, as far as my family's concerned, that, you know, we're on the way. We're, you know, it's, it's, we're getting there. He has seven boys and two girls. And, uh, by the way, they live in a two-bedroom house. Uh, he's built a little loft for he and his wife, a little, you know, little place up in the, in the attic where he and his wife sleep, and then seven boys in one bedroom, and, and the two girls in the other. Well, anyway, and she homeschools. But, um, so, um, so when you meet John D'Orrley, say, uh, how's your wife? Uh, anyway, John, John does a lot of, um, campus preaching, and, um, every September he goes and preaches all across Michigan. He preaches in a lot of other campuses too. Well, he was down preaching at the, um, community college right downtown Grand Rapids some years ago, and, uh, while he was preaching there, it was at lunchtime, and he was standing on public property and preaching the gospel, and this rent-a-cop came along and said, told him to leave, and he said, well, I'm almost done, and she said, you are done. And he said, well, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. She said, if you don't leave, I'll have you arrested. Well, he said, I'll go away and check out the books, and if I'm not doing anything wrong, I'll be back tomorrow. So he did, and he came back. Well, she called the police, and they arrested him for what was called disturbing the school, which isn't even in the books, you see? Uh, before he was arrested, this was the day before, um, the campus newspaper got a picture of him preaching. I'm sure they waited for it. They got him pointing in a certain direction, like this, you know. And uh, so anyway, the caption read, uh, campus preacher John Biorle was exercising his First Amendment rights in expressing his views on salvation until he caused a disturbance and was asked to leave. He wrote a letter to the editor and said, uh, regarding the photo of myself on the front page of your paper, I just wanted to point out that the school was disturbed long before I got there. And then he quoted, the wicked are like the troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt, and can never be at rest. The city kept putting, I'll just tell you the end of the story, the city kept putting it off, putting it off, hoping John would, you know, cop a plea or make a deal, and well, he wasn't interested in that. And so eventually he said to us, they kept, you know, he'd come to court, and then they'd push the date ahead again. So he asked all the Christians to come this day to court, and so they packed out the courtroom. And when the judge walked in and looked at all this crowd, he said, wow, I didn't realize there was such an interest in this case. We'll hear it today. And the city said, we're not ready. He said, you've had lots of time to be ready. We're going to hear it today. Well, they took all day. And at one point, um, one of the things they tried to accuse him of, there was a walkway that went from the college over to a parking lot, and there were a bunch of students up there listening to him and calling down questions from this walkway, and they tried to say that if, with the added weight of all those students up there, the walkway might have collapsed, and he would have been guilty, you know. And John said, well, I, you know, I thought you might say something like that, so I went and checked, and, you know, your city government has approved that as a fire escape, which means that all the students have to be able to go roaring over that thing all at once, right? So if it's going to collapse with a few students up there, you probably better check your own city government that's authorized that as a fire escape. Well, John had asked us to pray, not just that he be exonerated, but that there be a clear statement that he could carry on. I mean, he didn't want the judge to say, look, I'll let you out this time, just don't do it again, because then he'd feel obligated to submit to every ordinance of man, you see? When it came to the summation, the judge said, well, this has been a very unusual trial. He said, you know, I haven't read my Bible for a long time, but this case made me take down my Bible. He said, shower, and I, I looked up to see where Saint Paul preached, and he always preached in public place. So by an authority higher than this court, I say you're free to carry on doing what you're doing. Every once in a while, John runs into that judge, and the judge says, I hope you're enjoying your freedom. Art thou he that troubles Israel? Oh no. The world is a troubled place because of sin, and we're inviting people to come out of their trouble into rest in Christ. Well, um, Elijah calls the people to a showdown. Ahab's over a barrel, and the barrel's dry. Three and a half years, there hasn't been a drop of rain. And so, uh, Elijah calls them to the heights of Carmel. And will you notice carefully the threefold appeal that Elijah makes? It's very helpful in proclaiming the gospel, as we seek to share the gospel with others, to see how Elijah sets about to accomplish winning the people over to the Lord. First of all, you'll notice in verse twenty one, he makes an appeal to their conscience. He says to them, how long halt ye between two opinions? And of course, the tragedy is that to many in the world today, heaven and hell is just an opinion. There are, however, people that used to live in their house, used to live on their street, used to be members of their family, and for them, heaven and hell are no longer just opinions. They're there between two opinions. The word that's used here is a word that, well, you know when you're walking through a shopping mall and somebody's coming the other way, and for whatever reason, we must be on, um, the gyroscopes or something, and we just keep on walking straight, and they walk straight, and it's a collision course. And finally you come within inches of them, and you stop, and they stop, and you zig, and they zag, which means you both go the same way. So you zag and they zig, and you do one of these little things for a minute, and then, oh, excuse me, I'm sorry, and you kind of fumble by them, you know, you know that little thing? Well, that's the picture here. How long do you halt? Should we, shouldn't we, you know? I mean, you sit down with a person and you write out a piece of paper and you say, I now forever relinquish any hope of being saved, and draw a line. On the other side, I now receive Christ as my personal savior, draw a line. Say there. And they look at it and say, now wait a minute, I'm not sure I'm, I'm prepared to say I never am going to get saved. But on the other hand, I'm not so sure that, I mean, I want to get saved now. And so multitudes of people in the world today hold between two opinions, and he calls them to make up their mind. Now, notice what he says, verse twenty one: If the Lord be God, follow him, but if Baal be God, follow him. And the people answered him not a word. What could they say? God had proved himself to Israel over and over and over and over again. What had Baal ever done for them? Nothing, but take their children, their young virgins, their crops, had robbed them of the best that they had and given them nothing in return. An appeal to the conscience. There was a very brave man named Peter Marshall, a Scotsman who came to the United States and eventually became the chaplain of the US Senate. And on one occasion, there was a very solemn decision, a moral decision to be made by the Senate, and they called Peter Marshall in to speak to them. He was not one to beat around the bush. When he came to the end of his message to them, he said this: Gentlemen, the decision before you today will affect the direction of this nation for years to come. If Jehovah is God, then follow him, and you will be blessed. If they will be God, then follow him and go to hell. And he turned and walked out of the Senate. Now, I'm not sure I could preach like that, but I tell you, that's exactly what's involved, isn't it? And so he calls them to recognize that the decision that they make on that mountaintop, like two drops of water falling side by side, will have a very, very decided effect in the destination. And we need, in proclaiming to men and women, that the gospel is not simply something that'll help them fix their marriage, that will not just improve their quality of life, that the ultimate consequence of their decision is God or Baal, heaven or hell, salvation or damnation. And that, my friend, is the big issue, isn't it? The people answered in not a word. What could they say? Well, he makes a second appeal to them now, and this time he appeals to their reason. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Think about this. God is the God who gives evidence so that people may believe. We can love God with all our minds. We can think about these issues. In fact, you don't start to think until you think about these issues in the Bible. And this is what he said. The prophets of Baal, let them take a bullet, cut it up in pieces, put it on an altar. I'll take a bullet, cut it up in pieces, and put it on an altar. You call to your God, I'll call to Jehovah. And the God that answers by fire, let him be God. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? If, if there is a God, and if this God runs the whole universe, how foolish of me to say, well, God runs the universe pretty well, but I, I really think I can do a better job with my own life. It makes absolute sense that if God is God, then let him be God in my life. And the people said, well spoken. I hear that a lot, you know, preach my heart out in a gospel meeting. People walk out the door and say, good word, brother, good, you know, that's a good word. I say, wait a minute. What do you going to do with it? What's the point? Was this just something washing over you, like, uh, sitting in a sauna, getting a nice warm religious feeling? Is that the idea? He appeals to them to think through their conclusion. I was speaking to a, a physics professor, physics teacher in high school. I'd spoken to the biology class, and the physics, the biology teacher came to me and said, the physics teacher wants to have a go at you. And I went down to see him, and there were about twenty five students showed up. It was after school, and they came down for kind of the showdown, you see, and... And so this physics teacher started ar- arguing biology. I said, excuse me, why don't we talk physics? You know, I was just up in the biology class, and he was trying to talk geology. That's the problem, you see. That's why evolution has survived, because mathematicians quote chemistry that chemists would never use, and biologists quote geology that geologists would never use. And why don't you explain to me how the laws of thermodynamics fit with the evolutionary hypothesis? I said, you know, I'm not here to argue science with you. I'm here for these kids. You know, at one end of this high school, they're telling these kids they have worth and value and purpose, and please don't commit suicide, and in your class, you're telling them just an accident, they might as well commit suicide. I said, I hold you personally responsible for this, sir. You know the number one cause of death in this age group is suicide? It's your fault. He tried to blame it on TV and everything else, and I said, no, sir. They may, they may be contributing factors, but the despair in our society comes directly from this philosophy that is being propagated in the school. I said, you know what the biology teacher just told the students when I finished? He said, well, Mr. Nicholson, you made it pretty much impossible for me to teach evolution to this class. Of course, we know the model wouldn't work, but we're obligated to teach it anyway. I said, can you imagine any other class in this school where they would say, we know it's not true, but we're obligated to teach it anyway? Somebody has must have a strong vested interest in the alternative not being true. But as I spoke to that teacher, I said to him, now listen, here are these kids. You have told them over these years that you, how how many years you've been teaching? Thirty two years. You've told them that they're just accidents. So I say to them, go kill yourself. What's the point? I mean, it's a sick joke, isn't it? What do you say to them? Well, they weren't going to help him, and I wasn't going to help him, and he stood there and shuffled around for a minute, and finally he said, well, I I've never confessed it to my students before, but I believe there's a mind that thought up the universe. I said, how long have you been teaching again? Thirty two years, never got around to it. I said, tell me, sir, uh, what's this mind like? He said, I don't know. Well, that's a fair answer if you've never met him. But let me ask you this, um, does he have personality? Does he love, hate, you know, communicate? He said, I don't know. I said, will you do those things? Yeah. But he doesn't. Well, then he's not God, you are. You're more advanced than he is. He said, well, that's a good argument. I said, I'm not arguing, I'm just asking you to think through. God says, think with me, reason with me, make, look at, look at the evidence. It makes sense. Evolution doesn't make sense, but the Christian message does. Let's reason together, think it through. I'm not afraid of Christianity in the marketplace of ideas. It can more than hold its own. It is the only sane, logical, defensible position in the universe. And that's why Elijah appeals to their reason. He says, think it through. And they said, it's well spoken. That makes sense. You notice the prophets didn't say that. The prophets realized that the facade was being torn away, and they were going to be exposed for what they really were. Well, uh, they build their altar. They, I mean, they're sincere. These people are sincere. They cut themselves with knives until the blood gushes out. It's possible to be sincere and be sincerely wrong, isn't it? They go from six in the morning till noon, and finally Elijah starts to prod them a bit. And he says, come on, let's get with the program here. Let's hurry up, you know? I mean, it's, it's got to be my turn pretty soon here. So what you need to do is shout a bit, call louder. Your God obviously is a hard of hearing. He's gone for a walk, he's sleeping, something like that. What was he doing? I mean, was he just feel- venting his frustrations here? No. He was showing to the people how ludicrous their position was. I like, I like how God deals with this issue of idolatry. You know, he tells a story about the man who goes out in the woods, cuts down a tree, takes a log, splits it in half, takes one half capriciously, and makes a fire out of it to keep himself warm, while he carves the other half out to make a god. And then the Spirit of God points out, you know, it really didn't make any difference which half of the log he used to keep himself warm and which half he used to make a god out of it, right? It's just so ludicrous, so hopeless, so ridiculous. And so it is with every philosophy that man promotes. There's no hope there. I talked to a fellow who believed in reincarnation. I said, you know, the problem with recycling is every time you come back, you're just as dumb as the first time. You know, if you're supposed to be making progress, it doesn't help. I, when I was born, I didn't know a thing. I didn't know how to tie my shoelaces. How is it going to help me to keep coming back if I go back to square one every time? Doesn't help at all, does it? Doesn't make sense. And so it is with every philosophy of man, there is a fatal flaw. Only the message of God makes sense all the way through. Well, then finally, Elijah makes an appeal to their hearts. In verse thirty. after the failure and, uh, utter despair of these poor men cutting themselves and trying desperately to get some response from heaven, Elijah said, come near to me. And the people gathered near to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. Now, the, the prophets of Baal went and built a new altar. It didn't make any difference to them, you know? If, if you have a false religion, any man-made altar will do. But if you worship the true God, God has a specific way to, to meet with him, and you will notice that he took twelve stones. Now, it's been generations since Israel and Judah divided, but God doesn't recognize man-made divisions. And so he took twelve stones, and he built an altar to the God of Israel, repaired the damage that had been done. You see, it's not enough, uh, in our witnessing to express what is false, to show the fallacy of unbelievers' philosophies if we don't build up what's true. If we don't show them God's glorious solution to the thing. And so he builds it up with the twelve stones, puts carefully the wood in order, cuts the book, lays it in pieces on the wood, and then there's this little bit about the twelve barrels of water. He does not want the people to think that this is hocus pocus. He doesn't want the people to think this is sleight of hand. He wants to eradicate from their mind any doubt that this is clearly a work of God. And so he covers the thing with water, it's sloshing with water. And then we read, he began to pray, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He could have referred to the Lord in many different ways, but what he does is he comes to the God of the individual. The God who loves people, individuals, persons, who has personal relationships. Does the Baal care about individuals? Of course not. This is the great thing about the Christian message, isn't it? There is nothing like this in any philosophy of man, that the God of heaven lives within me, that the God of heaven loves me. I can say he loved the world, but oh, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. A personal relationship with God. And that's how he prays to him. And he says, let it be known this day that thou art God. Now, when he finishes his prayer, the fire of the Lord. Imagine for a moment, if you can, that your God that day, looking down on that little scene. You see there the false prophets of Baal and the prophets of the groves and the people and Ahab. Who would you send the fire on? These false prophets that had led your people ahoring after other gods, prophets of the grove sitting, feeding sumptuously at Jezebel's table while your people are starving in the streets, or those who call themselves the people of God and are worshiping sticks and stones in mockery of all that you've ever done for them. What would you do? I'm so glad the fire fell on the sacrifice. Now, this is essential in understanding later on. You see, Elijah will come to the point in his ministry when the fire falls on those who rejected the sacrifice. Sitting on the hill, Ahab's wicked son now, uh, sends for information from Jehovah? No, from the Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub, down in Philistia. And Elijah intercepts the messengers and says, excuse me, I'll save you the trip. Is there no God in Israel that you have to go after, some fly God? The king's gonna die, go tell him. Well, when they come back after such a short trip, he says, what's the story? They said, well, we met this man, kind of a hairy fellow and leather belt, and that's Elijah, go get him. Drag him in here. And so, uh, a- a- an officer goes with fifty men, and he goes to drag Elijah in, and Elijah says, well, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and barbecue you. Fifty one men disappear just like that. And you would think that would be enough to get his attention, but you see, now the king is hardened against the truth. And he sends another fifty one, and they're burned to a crisp. And so the third one comes, and this time the commander falls on his knees and begs for mercy, and there is mercy with God that he may be feared. And God chose mercy. But the fire falls on those who reject the sacrifice. Now, you see, when the Lord Jesus is walking through the same piece of real estate, the Samaritans realize that Jesus isn't their private Messiah, that he's going through Samaria. He's willing to save them too, but he's going through Samaria all the way to Jerusalem. He set his face steadfastly to go to the cross. James and John, sons of thunder, want a little pyrotechnic here, and they say, Lord, uh, these Samaritans won't receive us here. Shall we call down fire from heaven and consume them. And the Lord Jesus said, you know not what spirit you're of. I used to think that meant I'm not like Elijah, I'm like Elisha. But that's not what he was saying. He was saying there were two times the fire fell in Elijah's ministry. The first time it fell on the sacrifice. The second time it will fall on those who reject the offer of God's grace and mercy. He was saying, look, this is my first trip, and this time I'm going to Calvary, and the fire will fall on the sacrifice, but I will come again in flaming fire, wreaking vengeance on all those that obey not the G- that know not God and obey not the gospel. This time the fire is going to fall on me. You see the scene now, not Carmel, but Calvary. You see the rulers of the Jews with their scrolls, their scriptures, and they don't know the author. Away with him. We will not have this man to reign over us. Look at the people who just recently have cried, Hosanna, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord, and now screaming at him and spitting in his face. Who would you have set the fire on? It fell on the sacrifice. There's a big difference, though, isn't there? At Carmel, the fire consumed the sacrifice, but at Calvary, the sacrifice consumed the fire until it was all gone, and he cried, it's finished! And all the judgment of God against our sin, once and forever satisfied. Dear Christian, we've got a message to preach to the nations that will turn their hearts to the right, and all the people saw it and fell on their faces. And taking the name of Elijah, as it were, and turning it around, El is Ja, they cried out, the Lord is the God. If we were to take the whole of the Old Testament and squeeze it into four words, I dare say it would be these four words, the Lord is God. Who is the God? That's the question. That's the question in the Garden of Eden. That's the question in Egypt, the question at Carmel, always the question. Who is the true God? The Lord is God. And if you were to take the New Testament and squeeze it into four words, it would be those beautiful words that our brother gave us, taken from Philippians chapter two: Jesus Christ is Lord. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New Testament, manifest in flesh. The one who came, took the fire for us. I love that little gospel tract. We used to hear the preachers preach it. Stand where the fire has been. Remember that story? Story of the, of the, the prairie fire sweeping across and the, the farmer out in his field just ready for harvest, and he realizes what he has to do. And, uh, he takes some kerosene and goes around his own field and lights his own field, and where there was golden grain a few moments before, soon it's nothing but black ash. Gets his family out of the house, puts them in the center of the field, covers them with wet blankets from the well, and waits for the firestorm to come. And in its fury, it comes rushing down upon his field, but when it gets there, there's nothing left to burn, and it sweeps around his field and his family safe. And so the invitation is to stand where the fire has been, where God's judgment has already fallen, to rest where God rests, in the finished work of Christ. What a picture of the cross, the place where God's judgment fell. And, uh, I- I think of the words of Brownlow North, who had lived a profligate life before he was converted, and he came up to the pulpit one day, and there on, on the pulp- the reading desk there was a note that said, I knew you in your youth, and I know that you committed the following crimes, sins, and he had a list of them. And if you dare preach, you hypocrite, I'll stand up and publicly expose you. So he took the note and he read it to the audience. The truth can stand the light, can't it? When he finished reading, he said, ladies and gentlemen, it's all true, but it's all forgiven. The fire has fallen. My sin. Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, has been nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. Shall we pray? Our blessed Father, we thank thee for the Elijahs who are willing to stand and confront the enemy. We thank thee too for the Elishas who graciously move about the people with the very fragrance of heaven upon them. For those who face down the enemy and those who woo the enemy. We thank thee, O God, for the glorious message of the gospel that is so full and so diverse in its message that whatever our background, whatever our education, whatever our capabilities, every one of us can be a witness to the grace of God. Every one of us can share in some little way what the Lord Jesus has done for us and what he means to us. We pray that we might have our souls enlarged to see so great salvation, to begin to understand, at least in some measure, what thou dost see in the cross, and that it will so captivate us, that it will so thrill us, that we won't be able to keep it to ourselves. We thank thee that thy salvation is full and free, that thou hast thought of everything, that there's not a weak link in the chain, that we can stand against the onslaughts of the enemy and know that when all is said and done, Baal will not regard nor hear.