Hey friend, welcome back here to the Semi -Seminary,
and here we are another week, another episode
of our Bible study series that we're calling
the Bible for Grownups. We are now in part two
of our two -part series. We're going to look
at the prophecy of Hebrew Scripture prophets
Elijah and Elijah's successor Elisha, and we're
going to see That when we examine these books,
we're not reading dusty old books that happened
in ancient history about a people long ago. But
we are, well, we're seeing problems that aren't
ancient problems. They're the problems that we
have today. Namely, in this episode, we're going
to examine this idea that all God wants is all
of our heart. That's all. Not some and not half,
but all of our hearts. And how often there's
a conflict between what we say we believe and
how we behave. Because so often we profess a
belief in a one true God, but we end up serving
all different sorts of very socially acceptable
false gods. And in tonight's story, Elijah is
going to ask the people of Israel. And the truth
of scripture is going to ask us today, how long
will you waver? When will you finally make a
choice? I hope you enjoy this episode, friend.
I'll see you on the other side. But let me begin.
Let me go ahead and begin. Tonight's discussion
is called, Who Do You Love? I'm still not sure
if that shouldn't be whom do you love. I think
it's who do you love. Story's going to come to
us from 1 Kings 18, starting down around, I think
15 or 16 is about where our story tonight will
start. And remember, so this comes to us from
this book. There's two volumes of Kings. There's
1 Kings and 2 Kings, right? And the purpose of
the two books, in the Bible are to demonstrate
how these kings of Judah end up failing, right?
Of Israel and Judah, not just the kings of Judah,
sorry, Israel and Judah. And the stories contained
within 1 and 2 Kings kind of tell and chronicle
how these kings had failed to live up to the
ideals of the kingship covenant that David had
made with God. David makes a covenant with God
that the king of Israel will put God first. And
these kings, after Solomon's initial line, become
increasingly bad. There are 19 of them in succession.
So, as a result, we end up... seeing God therefore
having justification for the exile of his people
that will come in the immediate events following
the prophecies of Elijah and Elisha, we are getting
to the end of the reign of the kings of Israel.
And so it's not going to be long before the Babylonians
and then later the Persians will have their control
over God's people. as a result of God's justification
in exiling them because they had turned from
God time and time and time and time again. So
it does really get a sense as we go through these
stories. Tonight's story, I think, as a matter
of fact, I think one of the things that we learn
through the story of Elijah and Elisha As we
go through looking at these two prophets, I really
would like for us to kind of hone in on the perspective
by which we might see ourselves in Elijah and
how we might also see Elijah within our world.
The things that he is saying, the things he's
doing, the way that the people are living. And
his response in response to their response and
the way they're living has a tremendous amount
of corollary to the world we live in today. And
I think that even if we look with the right set
of eyes, we can see Elijah in our world and we
can see ourselves in Elijah as well. I hope so,
anyway, as we go through this. So the Chronicles,
I'm sorry, the Kings. Not the Chronicles. Chronicle,
this period of time in which the monarchy period
shows failure of king, of failure after king,
after failure after king. The failure is first
evident in Solomon after whose reign the kingdom
is divided. Remember last week, we talked about
at this point that there are two kingdoms of
God's people. There are the people of Israel,
the kingdom of Israel. The 11 tribes of Israel
minus Judah and the kingdom of Judah, which still
retained the holy city of Jerusalem down here.
So that happens right after Solomon's reign.
So the unified kingship covenant of God made
through David cracks after his son's reign, right
off the bat. So these books tell a progression
of... king's failures. Sometimes God wants to
reveal his displeasure with the people's failures,
and sometimes he does it through judgment. Other
times, what he'll do is he'll raise up champions
or better representatives of his kingship. And
when Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen we're
talking about right now, when they attempted
to dethrone Yahweh as Israel's national god in
favor of the God Baal. It was the prophet Elijah
who God raises up to become the champion of Yahweh's
kingship. In many biblical accounts, Elijah's
successor, Elisha, the other guy we're going
to look at, is often seen as a surrogate king
because of his authenticity in his worship of
God, the people of God. can see a difference
between the prophet and the king. Elisha will
bring justice to many people and victory over
the armies of the enemies. These two books are
written from a perspective of exile. In other
words, these stories that we read about here
are written at a time after they have been conquered.
Okay, these are, look, it's called post -elixic,
after the exile. Okay, so they have been or in
exile, right? And they're now looking back on
how did things go so wrong, so fast, so bad.
And they write the stories down. They recall
the stories of their history. And that's what
these books are, okay? And the narrative, right,
because we talk about these 19 kings and the
time of David and Saul and David and Solomon
really is a slow story. We read about events
that take place over just days or months, right?
But when we get to the part of these bad kings,
they come at us almost like a blur. One king
following another, which I think is exactly what
the author or authors intended to do. One king
blends into another as a pattern of failure of
human kingship emerges. The author is more interested
in spiritual relationships and the king's relationship
with God with regard to the kingship covenant
than they are to political events that are actually
taking place in the country. The books also show
how God tries to warn and guide people, often,
again, through judgment, also through these prophets.
God's role in advising and influences the kings
is represented through these characters, the
prophets. And the continuing revelation of instructions
and warnings takes place through these men and
women who serve as God's spokesmen and spokeswomen.
So if you have your Bibles and you'd like to
follow along, if you want to turn them up, turn
them, open them up, turn them up. Open them up
to 1 Kings chapter 18. 1 Kings chapter 18. If
you're turning there, let me say, while you're
turning there, let me say something I think is
important to God. Above anything else in our
lives, God wants to have all of our hearts, all
of our worship, all of our focus, all of our
adoration. God wants to be number one and have
all of our hearts. In fact, the very first of
the Ten Commandments, Commandment numero uno,
right? God says, you shall have no other gods
before me. When Jesus was questioned, what is
the most important of the commandments, Jesus
said, above all else, in other words, numero
uno, you are to love the Lord your God with all
of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. God
wants all of our hearts, not just part of our
hearts. Which brings up a good question. If you're
the spiritual enemy, what would you do to try
to hurt God? false gods to serve false gods.
And I think each and every one of you here would
probably agree that that's something that we
could say Satan has been doing throughout the
whole of human history, putting false gods in
the place of the one true God. That's called
the sin of idolatry, which leads to the thought
for tonight. And that's that false gods promise
what only the true God can provide. Our story
tonight between the true prophet of God, Elijah,
the one true God, and the 450 prophets of Baal,
this false god, we're going to see the people
are relying on and expecting Something to come
from a false god that that god cannot provide.
That only the one true god can provide. For example,
and I'm not talking about Baal and Asherah right
now, right? This is much more fundamental than
some golden calf or some snake on a stick, right?
Money's a pretty popular false god, right? If
you have enough money, you'll feel happy and
secure. It's what a lot of people believe about
the false god of money. But the reality is once
you get enough money, right, and you get to that
point where you can feel safe and secure because
of your wealth, what happens when a doctor says
you have cancer and you're going to die in 30
days? It's in that moment that you realize it's
not going to matter how much. Money you have.
It doesn't make you secure. It's a false promise.
Money says if you have enough, you'll be happy,
but it doesn't matter how much money you have.
If one day you find out that you've lost one
of your children, right? No amount of money can
buy you happiness in that moment. It's a false
God. It's a false promise. It promises something
that it cannot provide. In the life of Elijah,
our prophet here, about 800 BC, many people within
the kingdom of Israel were living idolatrous
lives. They were worshiping and serving these
false gods. In fact, if you missed last week,
let me just review some context. Again, additional
context for this particular part of the first
book of Kings. Elijah was called... by God to
confront this evil king named King Ahab. He's
buried to the wicked woman that we know, at least
we know the name of, Jezebel, right? He was the
19th consecutive king. Scripture says he did
more evil in the eyes of God than anyone before
him, any of the 18 before him. He was the worst
of all of them, the worst of the worst. He had
a long list of sins and of wickedness, but the
worst thing that Ahab did was he continued turning
the hearts away from the one true God toward
the false gods of Baal and Asherah. Baal was
the sun god or the fire god. That's going to
come up in our story here in a minute. Asherah
is kind of like Baal's wife, and the people were
no longer worshiping the god of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Instead, They're worshiping these
false gods. The false gods promised, if you worship
me, we'll make your crops grow. If you worship
me, then you'll have a better life. Now remember,
because they continued to creep towards living
idolatrous lives, God sent some judgment to them
during the time and spoken through the prophet
Elijah involving the amount of rain they were
going to receive, right? They're in a drought.
They feel abandoned by their God. And so rather
than leaning into the faith in the one true God
that will provide and repenting and turning their
hearts back towards God, they begin to lean on
the false prophets. I'm sorry, well, the false
prophets, but the false prophets of the false
gods. In this instance, Baal and Asherah. We're
gods that were believed to be fertility gods
and would be able to allow them to make crops
grow. So they recognize who they are as the people
of God, but they've just decided, what have you
done for me lately? And they turn their hearts
the other way. God raises up Elijah because of
your idolatry. We're not going to send you the
rain. Well, they're in this drought. Tens of
thousands of people are dying. I don't know.
Tons of people. I don't know about tens of thousands.
It's a famine. It's the worst thing you could
imagine. God sends his prophet Elijah into a
period, remember last week, first into a period
of hiding and preparation. Why? Because King
Ahab had told everybody, remember our story starts
with Elijah coming up to the king and looking
him in the eye and saying, going to make it.
Going to make a drought. You've turned from God.
You're not who you're supposed to be. God's going
to punish you. And it's happening. So from that
confrontation on, everybody that King Ahab runs
across in the palace, he makes sure that they
know if you see Elijah, you kill him. Right?
There's only one wanted poster down in the post
office here in Gilead. It's got Elijah's picture
on it. Right? And so, God takes him to this place
here called the Kareth Ravine. And if you were
here last week, you remember that word Kareth
in Hebrew. It means a place of cutting or something
to be cut down or chopped down. It's a place
of humbling. And God used this time and this
preparation of humbling Elijah so that he could
develop, elijah into a stronger man for god god
fed him by morning and evening and you recall
they caused the brook to to flow uh ravens flew
in would drop bread and meat just enough for
the day he could drink from the brook but one
day the brook dries up god calls him to move
to another place that place was up here called
zarephath there was the widow and uh God used
these folks to provide for him with just a little
bit amount of oil and flour that miraculously
never ran dry. One day the widow's son died.
The growing man of faith was able to restore
this child to life. We see the prophet developing
into a man of God that God wants him to become.
And you'll see as these stories take place in
Elijah's life. They do in fact become more and
more intense. Hey, listen, if you've made it
this far, first of all, thanks for making it
this far. I hope that you're enjoying it. I hope
you'll enjoy this second half. But I'd just like
to take one second just to ask if you could do
me a favor. If you are enjoying the semi -seminarian,
if you like what we're doing here, if you could.
If you could like us, whatever platform, if you're
on Spotify or Apple or Stitcher or whatever your
platform is, if you could like us and follow
us. And if you have the opportunity to maybe
give us a review like on Apple Podcasts, we would
certainly really appreciate it. That really helps
get the Bible study message out to more people.
Because the algorithm stuff, I don't really understand
it all, but I've been told it helps. So if you
could help me, I would certainly appreciate it.
Listen. Not going to take up any more of your
time. We're going to go right back to our story.
Now, our last verse last week told us that he
went into hiding again. And we find out now God
wants him to go and confront the evil King Ahab
again. And we're not going to get that first
part of Kings 18, but he uses a prophet by the
name of Obadiah. Obadiah also has his own work
within, at least a work attributed to him in
Hebrew scripture. as a prophet and a palace administrator
under King Ahab. And so he's kind of the guy
that's able to arrange a second meeting between
the two. 1 Kings 18, 17, 18. Here's where we'll
pick up the story. Three years, about three years
into the drought at this point, okay? Three years
later, we see them together again. Scripture
says, when Ahab saw Elijah, he said to them,
is that you, you troubler of Israel? You know,
this is your fault that this happened. It's interesting.
The word troubler there in Hebrew is the word
akah. And it means to roil up like if you were
manually washing clothes and you created turbidity
in your wash bucket to wash the clothes. Akah,
right? He's calling that with regard to what's
going on in Israel. It's your fault that this
is happening. All the people are dying in this
drought because of you, Elijah. And Elijah says,
I'm not going to take this mess from you. So
he pops off right back to the king. He says,
no, sir, I've not made trouble for Israel, Elijah
replied, but you and your father's family have.
You've abandoned the Lord's command. You have
followed the Baals. You're committing the sin
of idolatry, is what he's basically saying. He's
saying, you, king, you are the one putting false
gods ahead of the one true God. And Elijah is
confronting the very popular idea that there
are more than one God. Now, let me give you a
couple of words here that sound super fancy,
but they really are pretty simple. They are really
nothing more than just $5 words. You probably
already know them, but we have monotheism and
polytheism, right? Monotheism is the belief that
there's one God. Christians, generally speaking,
I believe, we Christians believe this. We're
monotheistic in our beliefs. Polytheistic, those
believe that there are multiple gods. And Elijah
is confronting a very polytheistic culture. Now,
remember, remember how we were talking about
seeing Elijah in our world today? using his prophecy
as a commentary for our own world, seeing ourselves
in this story. I think a lot can be said that
we live in a polytheistic culture today as well.
Now, we Christians will say, no, no, no, no,
we're monotheistic because we believe in one
true God. But even though we believe in one true
God, many of us live what I think we could call
polytheistic lives. I mean, we believe in God,
but in reality, we worship and we serve many
false gods. Now, most of the people I know, most,
are not worshiping these false gods from Canaan
called Baal and Asherah, but in reality, worshiping
false gods that are much more socially acceptable.
I mean, Baal... They would sacrifice kids to
Baal. The false gods we serve today are thin
mint Girl Scout cookies compared to Baal and
Asherah. Let's be honest. A lot of people we
just mentioned worship the false god of money.
Or it's the false god of material possessions.
It's house. It's car. It could be your image.
The way you look. Could be your sport, could
be your career, could be your hobby. But the
truth is that whenever, whenever, every single
time we elevate anything, and I mean anything,
in the rightful place of the one true God, and
we put anything, and I mean anything, on the
throne of our life besides God, that is adultery.
Even things that are good and important. Right?
If you're serving the American Red Cross with
so much of your energy and your time that you're
putting God second in your life to the American
Red Cross, that is the sin of the idolatry of
American Red Cross. I just made that thing up.
You see what I'm trying to say, right? It's not
always substance abuse. It's not always gambling.
It's not always pornography. Anything that we
put on the throne of our lives besides the one
true God is idolatry. So, that's why I think
we should take the time in our heads to try to
identify what false gods we might serve. What
false gods that we might put ahead of God, right?
The sin of idolatry. We're monotheistic in our
beliefs, but our practice is very polytheistic.
So the Elijah prophet here steps into this very
polytheistic culture and he makes a very prophetic
and a very strong statement. I can summarize
the story in one message. He looks at them as
they're going back and forth between their service
of Baal and Asherah. Right, because they might
have had some little agricultural luck, just
dumb luck as a result, trying to find their way
back to God, but finding themselves displeased
because God's not working for them in the way
that they think God should work in their place.
And they're kind of just waffling back and forth
in their commitment. Another thing I think that
we can see very common, very common in our culture
today. The way that we believe, the way we think
we believe, is often very inconsistent with the
way that we behave. And this is important, right?
Because if we think we believe one thing, but
we live in a different way, we're not giving
God all of our heart. We're only giving God part
of our heart. point of where we started at here
tonight. That's the point here of what Elijah
is saying. Stop going back and forth. He's actually
going to tell the people it's time to quit wavering.
Quit going back and forth between gods. Quit
going back and forth. It's time to stop. So what
he does is he says I think I have a way that
we can solve this. Why don't we have a good old
-fashioned showdown? Here's what he says to King
Ahab, pardon me, 18 verses 19 through 21, 1 Kings.
He says to the king, king, now summon the people
from all over Israel to meet on Mount Carmel,
right here inside the circle, green circle right
here. He was up here in Zarephath, now he's down
here, Mount Carmel is where this is going on.
Right on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Bring forth the 450 prophets of Baal and the
400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's
table. Verse 20. So Ahab sent word throughout
all Israel and he assembled the prophets on Mount
Carmel. Verse 21. Here's where Elijah, I think,
kind of gets in the people's face. Justified
anger here. Elijah went before the people. He
asks them a very piercing question. He says,
how long will you waver between two opinions?
How long will you waver? And then he says this.
He says, if the Lord is God, okay, guys, if the
Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal is God,
Follow him. The people said nothing. He steps
in, he says, how long will you do this? If God
is God, guys, follow him. If Baal's God, okay,
fine, follow him. Right? If Elijah were here
today, I think he, again, in our world, I think
he would say the same thing to us. Quit goofing
off. Quit wavering. Right? Because here's the
truth. Again, talking about what we think we
believe and how we live our lives, right? A lot
of that for a lot of people, not you good folks,
but you might know somebody like this that think,
yeah, you know, I want God to keep me out of
hell. I mean, I want to get into heaven, but
I still want to do what I want to do here on
earth. Oh God, oh Yahweh, hear my prayer. Bless
me, but I don't want to obey your commands. Oh
God, oh God, I want all of the good things, but
I don't want to stop my bad things. Quit wavering.
Right? It said quit being a Christian on Sunday
and a heathen on Monday. It's a thin line between
Saturday night and Sunday morning. Quit claiming
Christ and living like you don't know it. Quit
wavering the benefits of being unwilling to sacrifice.
Take a side. Just take a side. If it's things,
stuff, money, whatever is your God, then quit
playing around with it and go for it. But if
Jesus Christ, we Christian believers would say,
the Son of God is the one true God, then as Christians,
quit your wavering. Serve Christ with all of
your heart. Don't just claim Christ and then
live as if Christ didn't exist or doesn't exist.
Serve him. How long do we waver between the two
opinions? So he says he's going to have a showdown.
He says, go get two bulls for me, one bull for
you, one bull for me. We're going to build a
couple of altars, and we're going to sacrifice
these bulls as offerings to our gods. We're going
to call your God, our God, and we're going to
see who really is God. So let's pick up the story,
verse 24, see what happens. He says this, then
you call the name of your God and I'll call the
name of the Lord. And the one who answers by
fire, God says, all right, scripture says he's
God. And all of the people finally, after being
called out, said, all right, sounds good. Because
you know what they're thinking? These people
are thinking, Elijah, Elijah, you made a mistake.
Dude, we're going to call on Baal. Baal's the
sun god. Sun, hot, fire. Elijah, did you forget
this? You're going to get smoked, old prophet.
So he goes on with the deal. Verse 26, Scripture
says, So they took the bull and they prepared
it. These prophets. They prepared it and they
called on the name of Baal from morning until
noon. And they are. They're literally dancing
around the altar. Oh, Baal, answer us, they shouted.
But the Bible says there was no response. No
one answered. And so, They danced around the
altar that they had made. Bail, send fire, nothing.
I love this because of my own personal sense
of humor. But I love this because if you can
see it with the right set of eyes, Elijah starts
to mess with these guys, Jack with these guys.
This is really actually funny. This is a man
of God. He's going to mess with these guys. He
says, verse 27, at noon, Elijah began to taunt
them. Why don't you shout louder? I don't think
your God can hear you. Surely he is God, perhaps.
Perhaps he's deep in thought. Or he's busy. Or
maybe he's traveling. Maybe he's sleeping and
somebody needs to go wake him up. I know he's
a God, but maybe he's on vacation. Right? Maybe
he's having a little siesta. He's got his milk
and cookies. He's taking a little nap. But what's
funny to me... is when he says, maybe he's busy,
right? He says it up here. He's deep in thought.
Maybe he's busy. You can look this up because
you're going to think I'm making this up, but
it's not. It's true, right? Look this up. Go
home and look this up. What it really says is
maybe he's going to the bathroom, right? Most
literal translation here is maybe your God is
busy. Because maybe your God is in the bathroom
relieving himself, right? You got Elijah, the
man of God, he's saying, shout louder. You know,
he's like trying to keep a straight face, don't
laugh. Maybe he's on vacation. Maybe he's on
the john, right? He's talking, where's your God?
Maybe you need to put an ad in the newspaper.
Verse 28 through 35. What do these crazy prophets
do? They shout all the louder. They danced around.
They went crazy. They started to cut themselves.
I don't know why, but that's what they did. Scripture
says that they shouted all day long. Sadly, though,
many of us, we don't dance around the false gods
all day long, but many of us do it all lifelong,
our whole lifetime. Dancing, praising, pursuing,
serving, worshiping false gods that promise something
but never deliver a lifetime long. So finally,
the end of the day, they dance, they cut themselves,
nothing happens. Elijah does this. 1 Kings 18
.36, at the time of the sacrifice, the prophet
Elijah stepped forward. Bible says he prayed.
Okay? He didn't dance. He didn't shout. Didn't
cut himself. He didn't do anything crazy trying
to get God's attention. He prayed. And next week,
again, I was telling you, I could have bumped
these two stories together, but really next week,
these both need their own time as a full story.
But next week, we're going to look at the faith
and the prayer life of Elijah, this awesome guy
of God. In much better detail. His prayer life
is going to really come into play next week.
But here he prays. Oh Lord God of Abraham, Isaac
and Israel. Let it be known today that you are
God in Israel. And that I am your servant. And
I have done all of these things at your command.
Answer me oh Lord. Answer me so that these people
will know. Oh Lord that you are God. And that
you are turning their hearts back. Beauty and
the power of these statements. Answer me, O Lord.
Reveal yourself. God, show us who you are. Let
us see you. Reveal yourself by fire. May we feel
the heat of your love. Show us, God, who you
are. Why? So that it'll rain? So that we'll have
good crops? So that we'll have some sort of agricultural...
Is that why we're doing and asking what we're
asking? No. So that you may turn the hearts of
the people back again because they used to know
you. They used to walk with you. They used to
serve you. They used to worship you. But these
false gods have taken your place, O God. Turn
their hearts back again. And as I read that,
I... I feel so much passion for many of us because
there are, not you good people, I'm sure, but
people you know, there are those of us who have
walked at one time with God. And then we walked
away. And we put some false god, some combination
of false gods, on the throne of our life instead
of God. And perhaps today God's trying to reveal
himself to you. Why? So that you can turn your
heart back towards God again. And maybe you can
start to sense that in your life because you
can start to sense that God's working. Why? So
that you can turn your hearts back towards Him
again. So, whoever is God, reveal yourself by
fire, he prays. And verse 38. This is the best
part. Watch what happens. The fire of the Lord.
I mean, Shazam, right? Imagine this lightning
rod from heaven fell. And here's what Scripture
said. That the fire that was lit, it burned up
the sacrifice and the wood and the stones and
the soil and it licked up all of the water around
the... that the false gods had poured on it.
It licked up the water that they tried to put
the fire out with. And when all the people saw
this, they fell prostrate and they cried, the
Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. And that'd
be my prayer for our church. That we could see
God for who God is and that the false gods would...
fall away by comparison to the one true God.
That our hearts would be turned back towards
him and we would say, the Lord, he is God. The
Lord, he is God. Now, I'll be honest, when I
read this story, the first time I thought to
myself, well, duh, send a fireball from heaven,
I'm impressed, right? I mean, God, if you're
really there, burn this baby up, right? God,
you're God, I can't do that. So if you can do
that, yep, you're God. Why didn't God do that
today? Why doesn't God show himself like that?
You know? And then the same time I keep asking
kind of the same question, I realize so much
of an intimate, more beautiful way as Christian
believers, how God revealed himself not in a
fireball from heaven, but through his son, Jesus,
that we might have the person of God. In the
person of Jesus who lived a perfect, sinless
life that he could die for us on a cross and
be raised again so that we could know him. And
when we do know God through Christ, friends,
all of the false gods will fall away. Any questions?
Okay. You know, I truly do. I hope that this
story convicts you the way that it convicts me.
Because I had mentioned earlier, we don't serve
false gods. We don't run around with plastic
horns on our head, sacrificing our children to
Canaanite gods. No, no, no, no, no. The false
gods that we choose to serve Even those good
things are very socially acceptable. That's the
problem. Will we allow the circumstances of our
lives to dictate who has control of our heart?
Will we continue to fall into the sin of idolatry?
No, no, no, no. Not a golden calf, but... Money,
prestige, power, anything that puts something
else in the place of God, the rightful place
of God on the throne of our hearts. Elijah asks
each one of us, how long will we waver? Anyway,
it's something to think about. Until next week,
friend, be well and be blessed.