Elijah’s Fire

Donna Wasson

I’ve always loved reading the stories of the Old Testament; the battles where the Israelites were vastly outnumbered yet crushed their enemy with the Lord’s intervention. The exploits of the kings of Israel and Judah through the years whether following or flouting God’s laws, just makes me shake my head in wonder.

There’s a treasure trove of information in those books that’s well worth studying, because it causes the New Testament and the Age of Grace in which we’re now living to make more sense, adding richness to our understanding of God’s overall plan for mankind. Those Christians who insist on only reading the New Testament and Psalms are missing out on SO much!

This morning, our Pastor spoke about one of my favorite Old Testament stories, found in 1 Kings 18. It’s an action packed chapter but for brevity’s sake, I’ll give you an overview.

A man named Ahab was King over Israel at that time and earned the dubious distinction of being more evil than all the previous kings, which was no small feat. He married a charming lady named Jezebel, who had a nasty habit of executing all of God’s prophets because she got tired of being told how wicked she was. She and Ahab turned their backs on the God of Israel and worshipped the satanic god, Baal, the precursor of Allah.

Because of their sinfulness, the Lord told his number one prophet Elijah, to go to Ahab and say the following: “…As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” 1 Kings 17:1 After delivering the message, God told him to hightail it out of there, and go to a place where the Lord took care of his needs.

Well, time went by with no rain. No rain means no crops, which equals famine. The Bible states there was a “sore famine” in the land, meaning it was really bad. People and animals were starving and thirsting to death, so Ahab told his right-hand man, Obadiah, who happened to be a God fearing man that they needed to scout out the land and look for water. Ahab would go one direction and Obadiah the other.

As Obadiah was walking around looking for any little pond or stream, he happened upon a man whom he recognized as Elijah. The King had been searching all over for Elijah ever since he proclaimed there would be no rain, to force him to rescind his curse on the land. Elijah told Obadiah to go get King Ahab because he was ready to talk to him that day.

Obadiah basically said, ‘Are you nuts?? If I go tell the King you want him to come to you, and you’re gone by the time we get back, he’ll kill me! Don’t forget I’ve been hiding and caring for a hundred of God’s prophets in a cave to protect them from Jezebel. And now you want me to tell Ahab you’re ready to see him?’

Elijah assured Obadiah he would be there when they returned, so Obadiah set off to get Ahab. 1 Kings 17: 17-19 tells what happened next. “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said unto him, ‘Art thou 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 Baal. 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 eat at Jezebel’s table.”

Then he threw down the gauntlet by challenging the god of Ahab and Jezebel to a duel with the God of Israel. He proposed each side take two bulls, kill and cut them up and lay them on an altar of wood, but not set fire to them. The prophets of Baal would pray to their satanic god, then Elijah would pray to Jehovah, and the god that set the sacrifice on fire would be the ONLY god Israel and her King would serve.

The King and all his false prophets loved the idea and agreed, so they got everything set up as Elijah had said, and the Baal prophets went first, praying and crying out to their fake god to send fire to their sacrifice. They started in the morning and by noon they were reduced to jumping on the altar, pleading with their god to answer. All they got was silence. Crickets. Nada.

While they were acting like nut cases, Elijah started loudly mocking them, telling them to yell louder; maybe their god was talking to someone else, or on a journey. Or perhaps their god couldn’t hear them because he was asleep and they needed to try harder to wake him up.

They finally got so desperate, they resorted to cutting themselves until, as the Bible reports, “blood gushed out upon them.” I’m sure you’ve seen muslims doing this in some of their festivals. Like I said, Baal was a precursor to Allah. Not much has changed, huh?

Later that evening, Elijah decided it was his turn. He told the Israelites to gather closer around and he took twelve rocks, one for each tribe of Israel and built his altar. But he wanted to really showboat God’s power, so he dug a trench around the altar about three feet wide. Then he put the wood on top, cut up his bull and laid the pieces on the wood.

continue article at RaptureReady.com:

http://raptureready.com/soap/wasson112.html