Elijah and the Prophets of Baal
Introduction:
In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. (1Kings 16:29-33)
Enter Elijah
It was into this situation that Elijah makes his appearance. God had sent Elijah to oppose the dominant culture of his place and time, so it was unavoidable that his life would be filled with controversy, to put it mildly.
This all begins when God sends Elijah to the Ahab, the King of Israel. Elijah is a prophet, which just means that he spoke for someone else. If I sent you to speak for me, you would be my prophet. We have those today, but we usually call them "spokesmen." Big corporations have spokesmen, politicians have spokesmen, and even entertainment celebrities have spokesmen. Elijah was like that, only he spoke for God. Throughout most of the history of Israel, God had these spokesmen called prophets.
The message God sends to the king via Elijah is this: "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word." You might wonder what’s going on here, and it’s this: God is punishing Ahab and Israel for their worship of Baal and Asherah. If it doesn’t rain, there are no crops. (In spite of all our technology, this is still the case, interestingly.) If there are no crops, the people will begin to get angry at the king. (This is just like people today who think presidents can make jobs.) Still worse for Ahab, if there are no crops for long enough, his kingdom will be weakened or even destroyed.
Have you ever heard the phrase "Don’t kill the messenger just because you don’t like the message"? Ahab wanted Elijah dead because he didn’t like the message. To keep His prophet alive, God put Elijah in a version of what we might call a "witness protection program."
God first sent Elijah to a remote location on a stream, and God sent food to Elijah via birds. But since there was no rain, the stream eventually dried up, and God had to relocate Elijah.
Next, God sent Elijah out of Israel to nearby Sidon. This is interesting because this is the queen’s home country. God directed Elijah to a particular widow’s house in the city of Zarephath. Being near Israel, the drought is here too, and this widow is about to give up and eat her last bit of food with her son, and then she figured that would be the end.
Put yourself in the place of this lady. Here comes this Israelite claiming to be a spokesman for the true God. Why should you believe this? To prove it, God has two demonstrations, both of them relevant to the situation and helpful to this widow.
First, Elijah asked the woman to make him a little cake. Keep in mind that she is about to starve. Yet Elijah makes a promise:
For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' " She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah. (I Kings 17:15-16)
As if this were not enough of a demonstration, there was more. The son of this widow became ill, and eventually died. Children were how you were taken care of in your old age then, so in essence this woman’s "social security" is now gone. In response to this, at Elijah’s request, God’s raises this boy from the dead.
There has been a tendency for people to think that faith and demonstration are on opposite ends of a spectrum, so that the more you have of one, the less you have of the other. This is one of many places in the Bible that you can see this is not so.
So what about Baal? Perhaps you are wondering why all the hubbub over this Baal religion. That is worth exploring.
In the time of Ahab and Jezebel, what was popular was the religion of Baal and Asherah. When the Israelites came to the land of Caanan, the worship of Baal and his side-kick Asherah was well-established and very popular. It was a part, a very large part, of the culture of those people.
1. Baal was the party-god, you might say, and Asherah was either his sister or his live-in girl friend.
a. Worshiping these two involved lots of sex, heterosexual and homosexual, and also prostitution. Worshipers of Baal and Asherah would get together on top of hills and have big, drunken, orgies — that was considered "worship." (I hate to say this, but it sounds a bit like the "Greek life" in some fraternities and sororities.)
b. When things did not go well for the worshipers of Baal and Asherah, the worshiper was supposed to offer a sacrifice. This sacrifice needed to be a human, usually one of the children of the worshiper. They would toss the child into a fire, and this was supposed to make Baal and Asherah happy, so the worshiper could go back to those orgies on the hilltop.
2. When the Israelites first came to Caanan, God told them to destroy completely the Caananites. This Baal business was almost certainly the reason why God wanted to Caananities completely destroyed. It was a whole culture of sin, and this sort of thing is far too tempting for most people.
3. But the Israelites had not destroyed the Baal culture, and it lived on. Sometimes it was pushed into the background, but at other times, especially when the prominent people of the time were participants, the Baal culture would re-emerge. This is what happened in the time of Elijah, because Ahab and Jezebel were followers of Baal and Asherah.
The Confrontation
God is about to end this drought, but before He does, he sends Elijah to confront the king and the whole Baal culture.
When Elijah first sees King Ahab, Ahab greets Elijah with this: "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" (I Kings 18:17) It’s at least a little amusing how people who are promoters of the worst evils can call those who point out their evil-doing "trouble-makers."
Elijah answers Ahab with these words: ""I have not made trouble for Israel. But you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the LORD's commands and have followed the Baals." (I Kings 18:18)
So Elijah and Ahab came to one of those situations that go like this: "You’re wrong!" "No! You’re wrong!" and on and on it goes. Now this is one of those politically incorrect debates, because part of what Elijah is saying to Ahab is that Ahab’s religion is completely wrong.
Now in these situations, it is never possible to know who is right and who is wrong because all religions are equal, just "matters of faith," right? Wrong!
Elijah invites Ahab to bring 450 prophets of Baal and 450 prophets of Asherah to Mt. Carmel for a big "debate." The public was also invited.
Elijah calls for a demonstration, and he allows the Baal and Asherah people to go first. You get your alter and animal sacrifice ready, but no one is allowed any incendiary devices. The god who answers with fire is God.
The Baal and Asherah people danced around all morning asking their "god" to answer with fire. They danced and screamed all morning, but nothing happened.
So about noon, Elijah began to taunt them, saying, ""Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." (I Kings 18:27) I suppose Elijah simply had no respect for his fellow human beings, because he showed no respect for their religion. Isn’t that the way many would see this today?
Or just maybe Elijah had a great deal of respect for these people, and that is exactly why he showed no respect for their religion. Perhaps religions that involve murder and sexual immorality do not deserve respect because they degrade those who practice them. It’s just a thought.
For the rest of the day the Baal and Asherah people became more frantic, and even cut themselves. In a lot of false (and stupid, for that matter) religions, it is supposed to make "god" happy if you torture yourself. (Unfortunately, even some Christians have adopted this attitude.)
When the Baal and Asherah people had carried on like this all day, Elijah finally took his turn. He had his wood and animal sacrifice arranged, and had a deep trench dug around it. Then he had enough water poured over the whole thing to soak it all and fill the trench. Elijah didn’t dance or scream. Rather, he just prayed this prayer, "O 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 have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again." (I Kings 18:36-37) God sent fire to consume the wood, the sacrifice, and even all the water in the trench.
For the moment, everyone was convinced that the Lord is God. But it wasn’t long until Elijah was on the run again, and many people were back at the worship of Baal and Asherah. There are a couple of things to be learned from this.
First, God doesn’t mind demonstrating that He is God. As I said before, faith isn’t the opposite of demonstration. Much later, when John the Baptist was preaching in Israel, Jesus would say that John was the second Elijah. Elijah got people ready for the great and final demonstration of Who God is for all time - that was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
But also notice that a demonstration doesn’t force people to believe. Some people sometimes will persist in opposing God in spite of any demonstration. In fact, everyone today who does not believe that Jesus is God the Son does so in spite of all the evidence for the resurrection.