Elijah and the Prophets

The Sunday school lesson today was based on selected verses from 1 King 18. It is a story of a "competition" between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. During Anita's lesson, a couple of items struck me.

Verse 21: Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." But the people said nothing.

Anita talked about how in our day, the question is "Do you believe in God?" In Elijah's day, people would ask "Which God do you believe in." Our challenge is different today, to be sure, but I think we fool ourselves if we don't acknowledge that we have, in our society, different gods, and that we choose every day "whom we shall serve." Who are your gods? Do you choose each day that God will be your God? I think it is one of the reasons we have to come to church each week -- we need that time to refocus on our God, and to each day, abandon our other gods.

Verse 28-29: So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one paid attention.

I noticed as I read the passage, that the prophets of Baal worked VERY HARD to try to please their god -- to attract his attention, and yet it (of course) didn't work. Compare that to Elijah. What did he do? First, he taught the people around him -- he reminded them about God. He worshipped, and then he prayed. Do we ever feel like the prophets of Baal? Working SO HARD to try to get things done, and getting nothing accomplished. The problem, I think is that we do not involve God, as Elijah did. It's a reminder to us, I think.

Verse 18:33b Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood."

Remember that this is a time of famine and drought. Elijah has them poor a total of twelve containers of water on the ground. In a time of drought, it would seem counter productive. How would you have felt if you were watching, and had seen Elijah poor 12 buckets of water on ground? Precious, precious water -- rare in a time of drought. Extravagant faith that God will make it rain. To me, it showed in a very credible manner that Elijah had faith in God. If we can do that, amazing things can happen.

Image: Frozen bird bath at the leaf raking site yesterday.