Turn Back to God Before It’s Too Late- The People of Israel's Turning Point: 1 Kings 18:20-46

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Good morning, good morning. We talked the whole

night through. Good morning, good morning to you and you. Man,

you started off with some really good rhythm there. Wow. Yeah,

and then I lost it a little bit, but I

got back to wow. Yeah, that was super cool. Man.

I'm not a I'm not a drummer, although I've always

wanted to be one. You could have been. You played

drums for Christmas. For Christmas. Yeah yeah, for like two seconds,

You're like a rock star. Man. Yeah that was Everybody

was like wow, yeah, yeah, all I did was hit

four tom stuff.

Okay, so we have a really interesting challenge today. We've

never done this, Momo. No, it's called the Wikipedia challenge.

According to Desert it is Yes, that's right.

So this says that I me, Jeff, Jeff, I'm going

to randomly select a Wikipedia page, and I'm going to

read the first paragraph aloud to you, Chris, yes, without

telling you the subject, and then you have to guess

what the article is about based solely on that paragraph.

So the topics that I have to choose from the

category is literally the world.

The world, everything in Wikipedia to the sudden. Yes, everything.

So I narrowed it down to everything that ever.

Yes, everything that's ever been put on the internet.

Yeah right, yeah, thanks Dezree okay for narrowing it down

for me. Okay, so I'm going to give you a hint.

It's a person. Oh good, okay, So does it help

you that? Yeah? Sure, okay.

They were born February twenty second, eighteen ninety and died

May twenty seventh, nineteen forty nine. This person was an

American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist. Was known for creating

a popular newspaper panel series, television show, and radio show

which featured facts from around the world. Wow, that's the paragraph.

Can you can you read that again? Oh? Do you

need the dates? No? Okay?

Ninety nine. Well, now you were thinking the wrong person.

Nineteen forty nine. This person was an amateur cartoonist, entrepreneur,

and amateur An American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist who

was known for creating a newspaper panel series, television show,

and radio show which featured odd facts from around the world.

Is it ripley Yes? Robert Ripley there you go. Yeah, nice,

good job for me. Ripley's Believe It or Not? Did

you like Ripley Believe of course? Yeah, I loved it. Yeah,

and the host used to say with the pause, he'd say,

he'd say Ripley's Believe It or Not? That's what you

would say, yeah, and uh yeah, so that was really

popular in the eighties, right, that was Ripley Believe It

or Not?

Was popper in the eighties, Yeah, yeah, sure, but he

was popular.

No, I met the show, yes, this TV show, that

TV show. Yeah. And then have you ever been to

a Ripley's Believe You're Not a museum? Two of them? Yeah?

Three of them? Three? Yea, yeah, yeah I have two

so yeah.

Okay, So you always wonder who's the wirdo who pays

the money to go see all the yeah, all the things.

It's us.

We're the ones I had. I read a biography of

Robert Ripley. Yeah, I've got on my shelf. It's one

of the better books I've read. Very interesting.

Now did you life just think of him? Uh yeah,

just now? Yeah, Like when you looked it up, you

were like, I'm gonna look up Ripley.

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna look up Barnum and then thought, no, no,

let's go Ripley.

Oh that's interesting. I'm glad I got it.

Yeah, good job man, Thank you Grays. Fifty thousand points

for you.

Wow, Holy Christmas.

Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm feeling so magnanimous today. I'm just

gonna just fifty thousand.

Points for you, and for you, I am so happy

I can cry.

And our friend, the first listener that grabs it, you

can have fifty thousand as well. What there you go,

just gave I just willing, he gave fifty thousand point. No, no,

somebody else is oh good, yeah, just don't take mine. No,

you can have yours, because I'm glad I have them.

But I loved Ripley and so very interesting. Kind of

a rags to riches story. This kind of a guy

who never gave up, who had, you know, just outrageous

dreams for his life, found ways to fund it and

to make it happen, and hustled and then used his

wealth to compound his wealth, and he just kept reinvesting, reinvesting,

almost went bankrupt several times. Did I think go bankrupt?

At one point? Then was outrageously wealthy in his lifetime

and very very popular. Odd guy. You know, he had

really buck teeth and all.

That kind of stuff in order to have that fascination. Yeah, fact, But.

I mean, so have you ever seen a picture of him?

No? Oh right, right, yeah, so he had some he

had some prominent teeth. That's a good thing.

He had money, yeah, yeah, and just really an interest.

Yeah. Interesting person.

And I just was riveted by the book, Like I

think I read it in a day and a half.

It was just a I don't know why, but I'm

always interested in people that can capture the general population's

attention like he did, and then capitalize on the fact

that he got some momentum and went because he didn't

have the internet back then, how do you capture the

At one point he was one of the most famous

people in the entire world, and how do you with

all of the disadvantagies he had in his life, how

do you capture the attention of the whole world. It's

just really really phenomenal, really neat story. So he wasn't

the best human on the planet, but interesting story.

So there you go. Well, good job. I wasn't sure

you'd get ripped. Thank you, Robert, very proud of it.

Good for you. And speaking of believing or not today,

I don't even know if you're going to believe this story.

Right or not. That's great, great transition. Was that good strength,

pres Elijah believe it or not? Yes?

So yesterday we established the fact that Elijah confronts Ahab

and says, you are the troublemaker.

Yeah. And I got an idea.

Once you get Jezebel's profits, the four hundred and fifty

prophits of Bail, the four hundred prophets of it a sherah,

and meet me up on Mount Carmel.

That's where we picked off. Yeah, we're left off.

So then in First Kings, chapter eighteen, verse twenty, it says,

so Ahab summoned all the people of Israel and the

prophets to Mount Carmel. Then Elijah stood in front of

them and said, how much longer will you waver hobbling

between two opinions? If the Lord is good, God, follow him.

But if Bail is God, then follow him. But the

people were completely silent. Then Elijah said to them, I

am the only prophet of the Lord who's left. But

Bail has four hundred and fifty prophets. Now bring two bulls.

The prophets of Baiale may choose whichever one they wish,

and cut it into pieces and lay it on the

wood of their altar, but without setting fire to it.

And I will prepare the other bull and lay it

on the world wood, on the fire or on the altar,

but not set fire to it. Then call in the

name of your God, and I will call in the

name of the Lord. The god who answers by setting

fire to the wood is the true God. And all

the people agreed. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Bail,

you go first, for there are many of you. Choose

one of the bulls and prepare it, and call in

the name of your God, but do not set fire

to the wood. So they prepared one of the bulls

and placed it on the altar. Then they called in

the name of Bail from morning until noontime, shouting, Oh, Bail,

answer us, But there was no reply of any kind.

Then they danced hobbling around the altar that they had made.

About noontime, Elijah began mocking them, You'll have to shout louder.

He scoffed, for surely he's a god. Perhaps he's daydreaming,

or maybe he's relieving himself, or maybe he's away on

a trip, or is asleep and needs to be awakened.

So they shouted louder, and following the normal custom, they

cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out.

They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice,

but still there was no sound reply, no response. Then

Elijah called to the people, come over here. They all

crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the

Lord that had been torn down. He took twelve stones,

one to represent each of the tribes of Israel, and

he used the stones to rebuild the altar in the

name of the Lord. Then he dug a trench around

the altar, large enough to hold about three gallons. He

piled wood on the altar, cut the bull into pieces,

laid the pieces on the wood, and then he said,

fill four large jars with water, and pour the water

over the offering in the wood. After they had done this,

he said, do the same thing again. And when they

were finished, he said, now do it a third time.

So they did as he said, and the water ran

around the altar and even filled the trench. As the

at the usual time for the offering the evening sacrifice,

Elijah the Prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, O, Lord,

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, prove today that you

are God in Israel and that I am your servant.

Prove that I have done all this at your command.

Oh Lord, answer me, Answer me, so these people will

know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you

have brought them back to yourself. And immediately the fire

of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up

the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust.

It even licked up all the water in the trench.

When all the people saw it, they fell face down

in the ground and cried out, the Lord, he is God, Yes,

the Lord is God. Then Elijah command and sees all

the prophets of bail. Don't let a single one escape.

So the people seized them all, and Elijah took them

down to the Kishan Valley and killed them there. He

killed eight hundred and fifty prophets.

And at that time, at that time, nobody could really

stop them.

Yeah, well, what are you gonna do, right, Yeah, I

mean you're called down fire from heaven. I'm guessing you

can pretty much do what you want to do.

Yeah, I'm guessing also. And so, first of all, just

an unbelievable believe it or not kind of a certain scenario.

Ripley's right, Yeah, I mean it's just incredible. And you

know what's so great about this is the symbolism of

like number one. Three years earlier, Elijah had predicted no rain,

which is attributed to bail. Right. It bails the one

who's in control of rain quote unquote right, So you know,

the Lord God is the one in control of rain,

and he's about to Wait, you're supposed to read the

rain thing too, You're supposed to read all the way. Yeah, okay, well,

let me keep going because this is exciting.

In verse forty one, it says then Elijah said, they

have go get something to eat and drink, for I

hear a mighty rainstorm coming.

So Ahab went to eat and drink.

But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and

bowed low to the ground and prayed with his face

between his knees. Then he said to a servant, go

and look out toward the sea. A servant went and looked,

and then returned to Elijah and said, I didn't see anything.

Seven times Elijah told him to go look, and finally

the seventh time, as servant told him, I saw a

little cloud about the size of a man's hand rising

from the sea. Then Elijah shouted, hurry to Ahab and

tell him climb to you into your charet and go

back home. If you don't hurry, the rain will stop you.

Soon the sky was black with clouds. A heavy wind

brought a terrific rain storm, and the Haab left quickly

for Jezreel. Then the Lord gave special strength Elijah.

He tucked his.

Cloth into his belt and ran ahead of Ahab's chariot

all the way to the entrance of Jezreel.

There you go, there it is okay. So the symbolism is,

you know, he's demonstrating that the Lord God is the

one who has control over the rain, not bail number two.

I think it's by no accident that he sacrificed the bull,

and you just talked about bulls. Was sort of the

symbol of the reality and power. Yeah, and of bail

of bail and so, so, you know, and it wasn't

it wasn't uncommon to offer sacrifice a bull. You know,

a bull is a common sacrifice. It wasn't an unusual animal. However,

the symbolism of the bull being slaughtered and how God

consumed the bull just like he was consuming all the

power of bail, the perceived power of bail. Right, So

it's just really symbolic. And then the third thing that

we can't overlook is the fact that that you know,

after three years of a drought, you and I would

probably have no understanding on how precious water would be,

right right, that's right.

And he says in this moment, because they've been in

this drought for.

Three years, three years, so he says, take water and

drench the offer, drench the wood. And he says, they

did it so much. They did it three times to

where it filled the trench and the trench was three

gallons and so and so, you know, just think about

the audacity just you're calling for water and you're in

you're and you're wasting it. And then on top of that,

think about this, how dry the wood would be after

three years of a drought. Right, So, you know, it's

it's almost like geez, you could almost expect it to

spontaneously spark, right because of how dry it would be.

And he gave bail that opportunity. But just in case

anybody had any doubt, we're going to douse the wood

with water so that it's so that so that there

is unmistakably no doubt, and that credit has to be

given back to God because God has done this thing

that is just so miraculous. So it's just I love

the details that are that are placed in here, that

that are so symbolic.

And again the you know I mentioned yesterday about how

rough around the edges he is. So he's the only

person in the entire Bible who makes a potty joke,

right right.

Right right.

Maybe he's in the bathroom, Yeah yeah, maybe he's himself,

Yeah exactly. So not only not only does he give

them the opportunity with you know, highly combustible drywood and

all this stuff. And there's there's eight hundred and fifty

of you, there's only one of me, So you guys

go first. And the Bible says they raved.

For hours all day, all day, a full blown rave.

They're dancing, they're cutting themselves they're going crazy, and he

starts mocking them, mocking, not not mocking them, He's mocking

their God, that's what he's doing, right, But.

Still, it's just it's so funny. Hey, surely he's a

God speak louder. Maybe he's on vacation. Maybe maybe he's

just daydreaming. Yeah, maybe he's sleeping. Yeah, yeah, he needs

to be waking. And so it says, so they shouted louder,

right right, and God's taking a nap.

Such a funny, funny segment. That that whole thing I

just and you know, in the same way I mentioned before,

there were three miracles mentioned, and then his reputation was

so strong that Obadiah was afraid, well, if I go

tell aheb, you might disappear, God might take you. So

how many more miracles happened in Elijah's Elijah's life that

made Obadiah think, this guy, you just never know what

God's going to do. So it's kind of the same

thing that God gives you a few things to just

establish Elijah's a man with a tremendous amount of spiritual

power from God. So in this one too, you kind

of get this hint that it only mentions like five

things that he mocks, but they rave all day long,

So the trash talking had to have been going on

all day. It's not like he only said these four

or five things, right, It's that it's letting you know

the same way. It's just letting you know these are

some of the things he was doing. And so they

just get louder and they get more crazy with their worship,

and now they're dancing around, they're raving around the thing.

Then they get out knives and swords and start cutting themselves,

sacrificing their own blood. And it's said, as was their customer, Yeah, yeah,

to try to get this bail to answer their prayers.

Yeah, And Elijah knows the whole time. He has complete confidence,

otherwise he wouldn't be mocking, right, And so he has

complete confidence that what's going to happen. And I love

how after he does pray that simple prayer, it says

immediately the fire came down immediately. As soon as he said, God,

show them that you're God. Boom, it happens immediately. And hey,

let's not overlook the fact that Elijah gets superpowers and

runs faster than a chariot. For I think it may

be hundreds of miles.

It's a long ways.

It's a long way.

It's not hundreds of miles, but it's it's miles.

Okay, yeah, yeah, Well it looks like hundreds of miles.

Well I guess it does, and does it? Yeah, it

looks like it's maybe it doesn't matter.

From from Galilee to Jerusalem's only like ninety miles. So

oh really yeah, So this distance here is we drove

it from from Mount Carmel over to Galilee and like, okay,

less than less than an hour.

Okay, so it's ten miles or less probably probably, yeah, okay,

but it's not hundreds of miles south of the United States.

But still he out right, he outran well, he out

ran a guy in a.

Chariot by the way, in a thunderstorm, right in a

raging thunderstorm. Because it actually said, what does it say?

It says that if you don't leave now, you're going

to get caught in the thunderstorm. And it said that

hang on, And he brought a heavy wind and brought

a terrific rainstorm. That's right. So here's Elijah. He tucks

his cloak into his belt and he starts running and

it says God gave special powers to Elijah and he's

running fast in a chariot in a rainstorm. That incredible.

And and by the way, the note on the Life

Application Study Bible said that one of the reasons that

Elijah could have run to Jezreel is because he wanted,

perhaps to make sure that the story that was brought

back to the city was the right story, right and

then and then perhaps another reason was maybe even to

give Ahab his last chance to repent, right to get

there before him and just to say, okay, you know, hey,

you know before you walk in there and you know,

go to go to queen Queen Jezebel. You know this

is this is you've seen the works of God, you know.

And so either way, though, for some reason Elijah runs back.

It doesn't say why, by the way, you know, it

just says he runs there, and then we're about to

see Jezebel's reaction tomorrow, right, that's right. If we don't

read it, we're going to summarize it.

Yeah, So it's interesting to me if that's the reason

he ran to a have you know, hey, yeah, give

him another chance. It's interesting because he did the exact

same thing for all the people before this all happened.

He said, hey, you need to choose which God you're

going to follow, right.

Right, there's something about that as as followers of God,

it is not unreasonable to in a loving way, which

I believe that this is a loving thing that God

is trying to get the attention to the people of Israel,

and in a loving way, he says, hey, you need

to make a choice. A lot of people don't deal

with things of faith at all, and they feel like

by not making a you know, they feel like by

ignoring it, they're not making a choice. But in reality,

you're choosing against God until you choose for God, right,

Jesus said, if you're not for me, you are against me.

It's like whenever you decide not to decide, you're still

deciding something. Right, you're deciding not to decide.

And so then he challenges them with their own gods

and these prophets, I mean, these these ones. The people

were pretty indifferent through the whole thing. It's not like

they're like.

No, our gods are real.

It just says the people are silent, right, That's what

it says. So they're like, whatever, you know, Well.

We know it's loving because it's three years in the making,

right right, it's it's it's it's God setting into motion,

demonstrating his power, so that when when this confrontation happens,

they have a chance to say, absolutely, I choose God.

Right, yes, so that but they don't. They don't really

respond at all. It just says after he challenges them,

it says, but if Bail is God, didn't follow him.

If the Lord is God, follow him. But the people

were completely silent. It wasn't that they made a choice.

They didn't say, oh no, we like bail. They didn't

really believe bail either. It was just this this kind

of agnosticism, I think. And yeah, the prophets do their

thing and Jezebelts seems to take care of everybody, and

it's kind of a cool thing. It's a cultural thing

we do, right. A lot of people go to church culturally,

but they haven't could really placed their faith in Jesus whatever.

They were completely silent. They're not choosing bail in this moment.

They're just not choosing God. And so then Elijah goes, Okay,

God has done whatever he can do to get your attention,

and God will you know, the difficult times, the famine,

all the drought, all this kind of stuff. God's doing

what he can do to get their attention. They don't respond,

and so then he he does this incredible miracle.

And it's interesting.

They're dancing around, they're shouting, they're screaming, they're doing everything

they can do, and their gods are completely silent. And

this is the beginning of the people going, Oh, my goodness, God,

is God right? Because and I've seen this many times

you have too. In our day in America, there aren't

many people who worship bulls, right, that's not right, worship right.

We worship pleasure. We worship our own intellect. Money, we

worship our own opinions. We worship money and what it

can get us our stuff. We worship our families. We

worship you know, our kids are politics, right, that's what

we worship. But it's interesting how often people will get

to the end of those things and when they're really desperate,

those things don't answer.

They don't answer.

I can't tell you how many wealthy people I've told

you say I've had tell me I just thought there

was going to be more.

I thought I would be more satisfied. I feel like

I've wasted my life.

I ignored my family, I risked everything, I got what

I wanted, and it's just leaving me empty.

Well, it's like the quote we did at Christmas from

Jim Carrey, the famous African comedian. He said, he goes

I would He said, I wish that everybody could become

rich and famous and do everything they've ever wanted, just

so they can discover it's not the answer. What a

great quote, right, right right. And by the way, what

I was going to say is so their gods didn't

answer them, is what I was saying. Yes, you know,

you know this reminds me of It reminds me of

what Jesus said in the New Testament, because it's interesting

because to your point, there's like an agnosticism there, there's

an indifference and then all of a sudden, when the

fire comes down, then they say whoa. Then they say, oh,

the Lord is God, the Lord is God. And yet

at the same time, it's almost a sad statement that

it had to come to this, that God had to

demonstrate himself in such a dramatic and one of the

most dramatic fashions in the whole Bible, you know, Red Sea, Parting, Elijahn,

Mount Carmel. I mean, it's up there, right, It's in

the top five. And so it's almost a sad statement

that the people would have to get to that point

in order to believe. But you know what Jesus said.

Jesus said, you have seen and believed, But blessed is

he who does not see and yet still believe. That's right,

that's right, right, And so you know, I think that

all of us would say, gosh, if Jesus would just

appear in my living room, or if he would just

make himself known, why doesn't he just do that? Why

doesn't he just appear in a dramatic fashion so that

all of us can you know, set the record straight

in our lives. But that's not what God has done.

From the very beginning. God calls us to have faith.

God calls us to you know, basically believe and not

see at times because because God has seen in other

ways in our lives. Right there's would you say that

you have the undeniable evidence of God in your life,

absolutely yeah, And you could tell story after story after story,

and yet God never has appeared to you physically in

a dramatic fashion or ragin fire down probably to that degree.

That's right, right, So God calls us to, you know,

demonstrate our faith. And that's why it's called faith, because

if he appeared in a dramatic fashion, that's that's not

really faith. That's that's believing something that we know that

we can see. What are you looking up?

I was looking up here on Mount Carmel. Oh, there's

an old church there, and you look out across the valley,

there's a If you look far enough to the east,

there's Megiddo, which is Armageddon. That that space Megiddo.

There.

There's an air force base out in front of you,

out in this valley where the river is flowing, the

could run Valley river, and they have this statue here

and our people can't see it. There's a statue here

with Elijah with a sword over his head and one

of the prophits of bel Can you see it? I

don't know if you can see it there, but well, yeah,

it's okay, we'll post it.

I'll have I ever post it.

But it's just one of those things that you're standing there,

and it was such an amazing, oh my goodness moment

when because you're like, oh, this is where Elijah did

the thing, and then you can the corner there's his

giant statue and the statue they decided to have of

Elijah's the sword over his head. And there's something to

be said when you finally do decide to make the

turn back to God, the people go, Okay, you're right.

God's God. He proved himself in this moment. Elijah purged

the nation of Israel of their prophets. He got rid

of all of the representation of that evil thing. And

there is something about that, right, this idea of saying, Okay,

I've turned the corner. I've decided God is my God,

so I'm going to eliminate everything that represents my old gods.

And he didn't go halfway. It's one of the things

I love about Elijah because even Joshua and the people,

David and Solomon, they made peace with the Phoenicians rather

than wiping them out. That was all still the Promised Land,

and they made peace with them. And so then all

of a sudden they have Mary's one of them, and

she brings the people back to the most comitted version

of their religion. Following bail she's funding eight hundred and

fifty prophets. And when the people finally realize God is God,

Elijah said, well, the job's not done. Just because God

did this miracle, the job's not done. And he he

had to do. God didn't wipe them out. God sent

Elijah to wipe them out right, and so there was

still work to do to decide we are getting rid

of every vestige of this former religion.

And it took a lot of courage there.

And so when I saw that that a statue, I

think that was the first time I've ever really thought

about that, because there's a plaque there and it's got

a Bible versus where he wiped them all out. And

I remember thinking the great miracle was fire from heaven.

But God didn't wipe out the prophets. God said, no,

you have to wipe out the prophets, and you're the

one that has to purchase. And so God does miracles

in our life. And then still, you know where he

rescues us and he brings us to faith in him,

but he also expects us to do the work of

you know, getting rid of the things that we used

to worship.

Yeah, that's great, Well, that is definitely our time and

so hopefully we will see you next time on the

Bible gush h