When Ahab meets Elijah, he calls him a ‘troublemaker’, 1 Kings 18:17. The reason he called him a ‘troublemaker’ was because, in Ahab’s mind, Elijah had troubled Israel by reminding them that they were committing idolatry and had neglected to keep the Lord’s commands.
In Elijah’s case, it appears that people can be troublemakers for all the right reasons. Elijah tells him that he hasn’t troubled Israel, but Ahab and his fathers before him have, 1 Kings 18:18.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Instead of apologies and pleas for pardon, Elijah meets the charge with a counter charge, and makes a sudden demand. ‘Gather to me,’ etc. This boldness, this high tone, this absence of the slightest indication of alarm, seems to have completely discomfited Ahab, who ventured on no reply, made no attempt to arrest the prophet, did not even press him to remove his curse and bring the drought to an end, but simply consented to do his bidding. There is no passage of Scripture which exhibits more forcibly the ascendancy that a prophet of the Lord, armed with His spiritual powers, could, if he were firm and brave, exercise even over the most powerful and most unscrupulous of monarchs.’
The real troublemaker in all of this was Ahab himself because he was supposed to be Israel’s leader but instead of leading people to God, he led them into idolatry, 1 Kings 18:18. It’s at this point that Elijah tells him to gather the people at Mount Carmel and bring four-hundred and fifty prophets of Ball and four-hundred prophets of Asherah, 1 Kings 18:19.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The number 400 seems to have been one especially affected by Ahab. We again find 400 prophets at the close of his reign, 1 Kings 22:6. The number 40 entered largely into the religious system of the Jews, 1 Kings 6:17 / Exodus 26:19 / Deuteronomy 25:3 / Ezekiel 41:2.’
We don’t know why Mount Carmel was chosen, 1 Kings 18:20, but it’s possible because it was located in the high hills, and this place was the main location for Baal worship. Whatever the reason this place was chosen, the stage was not set for the great showdown between God and the false prophets of Baal. Elijah asks the people ‘How long will they waver between two opinions? 1 Kings 18:21.
Elijah set a challenge against those who wanted to live in idolatry and those who wanted to live by God, 1 Kings 18:21. Notice, when he asked if they would follow God or Baal, the people said nothing, 1 Kings 18:21. Elijah was a courageous man who loved God very much.
He knew that it wasn’t easy to stand up against Ahab and the false prophets of Baal. But he trusted in the one true God and was ready to do what God asked him to do. God told Elijah to go and face up to Ahab, and so, he went to see Ahab, and he offered him a challenge.
Elijah basically says Let’s have a competition. Each of us will build an altar and prepare a sacrifice, and place it on an altar. Then you will ask your god to set fire to your sacrifice, and I will ask my God to set fire to my sacrifice, and we’ll see who wins. King Ahab agreed to the competition, and he gathered all the prophets of Baal together, 1 Kings 18:23-24.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘God had frequently before consumed offerings with supernatural fire, Leviticus 9:24 / Judges 6:21. The Baal-worshippers were no doubt in the habit of attributing thunder and lightning to their gods – the great Nature-power – and thus had no excuse for declining Elijah’s challenge.’
Remember, there were four-hundred and fifty prophets of Baal but only one prophet of the one true God, Elijah, 1 Kings 18:22. This made the competition even more exciting and challenging, one true prophet versus four-hundred and fifty false prophets. This was basically God versus man. What we are going to see is that this contest wasn’t really for the false prophet’s benefit but Israel’s benefit.
Elijah straight away takes the offensive by offering the false prophets a chance to prove themselves before the people, 1 Kings 18:25. The prophets of Baal went first, and so, they built their altar and placed their sacrifice on it. Then they started praying and calling on their god, Baal, to send fire to burn the sacrifice. They prayed and shouted for hours, Acts 19:34, and they even danced around, but nothing happened, 1 Kings 18:26.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
It seems that the priests of Baal employed the whole day in their desperate rites. The time is divided into two periods.
1. From morning until noon; this was employed in preparing and offering the sacrifice, and in earnest supplication for the celestial fire. Still, there was no answer, and at noon, Elijah began to mock and ridicule them, and this excited them to commence anew.
2. They continued from noon till the time of offering the evening sacrifice, dancing up and down, cutting themselves with knives, mingling their own blood with their sacrifice, praying, supplicating, and acting in the most frantic manner.
Elisha, at this point, begins to mock them by telling them to shout louder, 1 Kings 18:27. He says, Hey, maybe Baal is in deep thought or busy, or maybe he’s on holiday at the moment. In Hebrew, it literally says, Maybe he’s busy on the toilet. Maybe he’s fast asleep, and your shouting isn’t loud enough to wake him.
They started shouting louder and even started cutting themselves to show their devotion to their god, but still, there was no fire, 1 Kings 18:28. Elijah watched them and listened to their frantic prophesying, 1 Kings 18:29, but he knew that their god wouldn’t answer because their god was not real. He knew that the one true God would show His power and love for His people. And so, Elijah decided to make the competition even more difficult for himself.
It’s clear they became frustrated because they started dancing, shouting louder, started slashing themselves, and frantically prophesying. The word ‘prophesying’ here means to rave on, out of control, 1 Samuel 18:10. In this visible event, the priests of Baal staged an unbelievably outrageous and bloody demonstration of frenzy, confusion, and screaming madness.
Sadly, this kind of self-delusional worship still remains today in some churches, where people run around wild, claiming that the Spirit has taken hold of them, 1 Corinthians 14:33.
Some speak in uncontrollable so-called tongues, etc. Everything in their worship is all about feelings and emotions, and like we see happening here, their god doesn’t answer them, and nothing happens, Colossians 2:20-23.
The first thing Elijah did was ‘repair the altar of the Lord’, 1 Kings 18:30. This again shows us how much they neglected their true God. When Solomon reigned, instead of destroying all the high places, he allowed God’s people to worship God on the formerly Canaanite high places of Israel, 1 Kings 11:7-8.
This may well have been one of those altars which Elijah repaired, and it could also have been an altar which was used by those who were faithful to God but had to hide their faith because of the persecution of Ahab.
Notice that Elijah took ‘twelve stones’, 1 Kings 18:31. This tells us that God still saw Israel as twelve tribes. After repairing the altar, Elijah goes on to dig a deep trench, 1 Kings 18:32, and he arranges the wood and cuts the bull into pieces, 1 Kings 18:33. He then tells them to fill four large jars with water and pour it over the wood and sacrifice, 1 Kings 18:33.
It’s clear that he didn’t want anyone to think that what was going to happen was his own doing. He didn’t want anyone to think that there was some kind of ‘secret spark’ that would start the fire, so he asked them to add the water over the offering and the word three times, 1 Kings 18:34-35. Surely it would be impossible for the fire to burn the wet sacrifice, but Elijah had faith in the one true God.
Elijah then prays to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that is Jacob, 1 Kings 18:36, which would have prompted memories in Israel’s mind. He asks God to intercede so that they will know God and know that God has turned his heart towards them again, 1 Kings 18:37, which was the main reason for this showdown in the first place.
When God answered Elijah’s prayer in a very powerful way. The people were terrified and fell prostrate to the ground and cried out that ‘the Lord, he is God’, 1 Kings 18:38-39.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The process of this consumption is very remarkable, and all calculated to remove the possibility of a suspicion that there was any concealed fire.
1. The fire came down from heaven.
2. The pieces of the sacrifice were first consumed.
3. The wood next, to show that it was not even by means of the wood that the flesh was burned.
4. The twelve stones were also consumed, to show that it was no common fire, but one whose agency nothing could resist.
5. The dust, the earth of which the altar was constructed, was burned up.
6. The water that was in the trench was, by the action of this fire, entirely evaporated.
7. The action of this fire was in every case downward, contrary to the nature of all earthly and material fire. Nothing can be more simple and artless than this description, yet how amazingly full and satisfactory is the whole account!
They knew because the fire came from heaven and because the fire consumed everything in and around the altar that God was with Elijah. In other words, it was at this point that they realised that they had been wrong to worship false gods and now was the time to turn back to the one true God.
This event is far from being normal, but this miraculous event stands as a powerful revelation of who God is, and we must learn from this event, 1 Corinthians 10:6 / 1 Corinthians 10:11.
The unbelievers quickly became believers, and because of what God had done, they were now ready to obey the command of Elijah to carry out the execution of the false prophets, 1 Kings 18:40. As the leader of the prophets of God, Elijah had all the prophets of Baal executed. Some believe that the killing of these false prophets was unjust and unnecessary.
However, when we think about how Jezebel had earlier murdered a lot of God’s true prophets, 1 Kings 18:4, we see this was absolutely just and necessary. We must also keep in mind that false prophets were commanded to be put to death by God, Deuteronomy 13:1-5.
So what can we learn from this event?
1. Be aware.
We need to be aware that there are counterfeit gods out there. If any of you have travelled abroad, you will know that there is always someone trying to sell you counterfeit goods.
On the surface, they looked like the real deal and felt like the real deal and the person selling you the goods is telling you they are real. You can buy a brand new Rolex for ten pounds or a huge bottle of Chanel No5 perfume for five pounds.
Paul speaks about this in Thessalonians, and notice he uses the word ‘counterfeit’, 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10. The miracles, signs and wonders look real, feel real, but they are fake. And why do people fall for these counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders? Because they are being deceived into thinking they are real, and they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.
People offer us to buy cheap counterfeit goods because they know there is a need for them. They know that people are easily deceived into thinking they are real. And so, some people would rather rely on their feelings, emotions, and experience than trust what God’s truth reveals in His Word.
So in a sense, their feelings, emotions, and experiences become more important than God’s Word; they become their god, Exodus 20:3. But God’s Word doesn’t change; He still commands that we should have no other gods before Him.
And please don’t think that an idol is only a physical object because Paul says greed is idolatry, Colossians 3:5. Anything that becomes more important in your life other than God can easily become your idol. Idolatry is the ultimate betrayal of the God who created us in His image.
2. We must choose.
The Bible says that the Lord is a jealous God who demands our whole affection. He won’t allow any of us to compromise our relationship with Him. He doesn’t want any lukewarm followers. He wants people who choose to follow Him and serve Him, Revelation 3:15-16. We can be hot or cold, but we can’t be lukewarm.
3. We must be willing to fight.
As Christians, we are Christ’s soldiers, and no soldier is called to just sit back and watch others do the fighting for them. The moment you declared Christ as Lord of your life and were baptised into Him, is the moment you declared war against the devil. That’s why over and over again Christians are commanded to stand firm and fight against the devil’s evil schemes, 1 Corinthians 16:13 / Ephesians 6:10-11.
The question is, are you in the fight or just a spectator? Are you fighting against the false teachers of this world with the truth from God’s Word, or are you simply not challenging them? Elijah stood up against the prophets of Baal because he knew the truth, and we, too, should stand up against the false teachers because we, too, have the truth within God’s Word.
4. We must pray for help.
Elijah would never have won this competition without the help of God. Elijah’s competition with the prophets of Baal taught the people a very important lesson about prayer. They not only learned that there is only one true God who is all-powerful and loving, but they also learned that they should always trust and worship Him, no matter what challenges they face in life.
Elijah knew that God was with him, and we too need to remember when we’re faced with our challenges that the same one true God is always with us, Hebrews 13:5. He is always ready to help us when we need Him, and He wants us to trust Him every day.
Paul tells us to pray at all times in the Spirit, to keep alert, and be diligent in prayer, Ephesians 6:18. Elijah prayed because he believed that God isn’t a false god, James 5:17-18.
He knows he doesn’t have to shout louder and louder to God to wake him up. He knew God was never too busy on the toilet. Elijah was just as human as we are, and he prayed and believed that God would not only hear his prayer but also act upon his prayer.
Who are you praying to? The bank manager to give you a loan to buy a new car or the boss at your work to give you a promotion. The god of sport to make you better than others, or the god of marriage counselling to help you through your marriage problems.
Are you praying to a god who doesn’t exist, or are you going to pray to the True God who longs to hear from His children and give them exactly what they need? Luke 11:11-13.