1 Kings 18:30-39. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 10, 2017.
Last week we saw how the prophets of Baal, a false god of the Canaanites, were unable to get an answer of fire from the heavens. Today we will look at Elijah’s turn, but in truth it is the One, True God’s turn to prove who He is. As the day is well past, Elijah steps forward and starts the process of setting up the sacrifice, so that he can call upon the God of Israel to show Himself to the people watching.
Several phrases throughout this passage make it clear that God does not want to “wow” the crowd. Rather, He desires to draw Israel back to Him. We see this in Elijah’s initial address for them to “come near” and also in Elijah’s prayer that Israel would understand that God is turning their hearts back to Him. This is an important theme throughout the Bible. Sin has separated man from God, but God calls out to mankind to draw near to Him through His sacrifice, Jesus the Christ. Every time a person turns to the Lord in repentance, or a group of people turn back to Him in revival, it always begins with the grace of God turning our hearts and calling us to Him. Of course people must respond. God will not force people to come back to Him. But it always starts with His grace to make it possible. This call comes through the prophet of Elijah. Come near, and see what God will do. They deserved judgment for abandoning God and worshipping Baal. But, instead, God is going to give a great demonstration of His power to them, while calling them back to Him. Elijah is not the only prophet whom God did this through.
This same theme is highlighted by Jesus and His Apostles after Him. Let us draw near to the throne of God for mercy. In John 7:37-38 we see, “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Also, in Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” The Spirit of God is continually calling us to draw near to Him. He wants to satiate our thirst and give us relief from the burden of our sins. But do we hear him? And, better yet, do we respond to Him? He calls us near so that we can experience the goodness of who He is.
Before Elijah can set up the sacrifice, he has to repair an altar of the Lord that already existed on that site. It had fallen apart and was in disrepair because of the abandonment of worshipping Him. The people had grown weary of sacrificing and praying to Yahweh, and so had left off for more popular altars. Never forget that when we abandon the things of God, their disrepair is a symbol of our lives spiritually. Think about the abandonment of God’s exclusive institution of marriage for life. All across this land are the tattered remnants of broken marriages left in the dust, which give us a picture of the hearts that have abandoned it. We see the same thing with the raising of children. Broken homes and children raised by single parents and grandparents have become the norm. The broken kids who come out of dysfunction help us see our hearts. Of course, we should encourage and help those who step up and care in a situation that is not optimal. But that does not counter the point I am making. How about the many churches around the country that are empty and in disrepair? Sure, some of it is the fault of the churches and those who lead them, but not all of it. There are many good churches around the country that are preaching the truth of God, but people don’t want to hear it and have abandoned being connected to a church. The disrepair of such places becomes a prophetic symbol of our hearts and lives. So Elijah repairs the altar because the altar is the place where an individual or a people gather to meet with God. How is your altar today? Is it in disrepair? I am not talking about a literal altar. We no longer sacrifice animals as they did in those days. Our altar is a spiritual thing. Wherever we draw near to God in prayer becomes our place of altar. But the altar is about more than prayer.
First it is a place of preparation. Yes, Elijah repairs the altar. But then he has to put the wood upon it and then prepare the animal and lay its parts out. Elijah also adds a strange aspect to this sacrifice. He has a trench dug around the altar and has water poured out over the sacrifice and filling the trench. Notice that the altar is not a speedy quick-order place. It is a place where we spend time preparing ourselves to hear from God. Don’t be so quick to walk away from the altar when it seems like God isn’t listening.
Of course, the altar is also a place where a sacrifice is made. The secret is not the animal used, but the heart that prepares it, and the God to whom it is sacrificed. God had told people to approach Him in that way. It seems strange to us, but it is highly instructive. First, it highlighted for them and for us the coming sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, as the Lamb provided by God. It is also instructive because it always costs us something to approach God. When our hearts are willing to give to God that which is valuable to us, He sees it from heaven and smiles upon us. Elijah sacrifices a bull, but it is not the only thing being sacrificed. The water is very precious on the heels of a 3.5 year drought. I don’t know if it came from King Ahab’s personal stash, but everyone watching could not help but think of this as a tragic waste. So what do we sacrifice today? We no longer sacrifice animals because Jesus is the “once for all” sacrifice for our sins. We put on the altar of our heart those things that would separate us from God. Some of those things are sinful. We should put them on the altar so that God’s fire can burn them out of our lives. However, some of those things are not sinful in and of themselves. We still put them on the altar and let them go because we would rather have God than those things. Some of those things that we put on the altar, that are not sinful, will be given back to us. We see this with Abraham and the near s sacrifice of Isaac. When God saw that Abraham would rather have God than the son whom God had promised him for so long, then God told Abraham to stop and gave him a substitute sacrifice. This is an amazing picture of Christ. But it also shows that God is not interested in taking things from us. But rather, He wants our heart to be in right relationship to those good things in our life. They are not God and they are not our source. Only God deserves that highest place in our heart.
The altar is also a place of humility. Elijah publicly risks himself. Ahab can now put him to death or in prison. What if this public demonstration fails? Elijah does not have the ability to bring fire down from heaven. He hasn’t been practicing in the desert and is now ready. It took great trust, faith, and humility for Elijah to stand up in the face of a whole nation and declare that the God of Israel is greater than the false god Baal. The altar is never about our great ability to approach God. It is about our desperate desire to know God and His great grace to respond to our faithful obedience.
Lastly the altar is a place of prayer. Once Elijah has everything in place, He calls out upon the Lord. His prayer is in verses 36-37. He makes it clear that this is about raising the honor of God and the truth about what has been going on in Israel. He also makes it clear that this is about God turning the nation’s hearts back to Him again. Oh that our hearts would be turned towards the Lord in the country, rather than to the world and what we want to do. There is no shortcut to these things. There is only a continual going back to the Lord, preparing ourselves in humility and speaking to God about those things in our life. What is your will Lord? I trust that You will answer, even when I go long periods of silence. In fact, when we are waiting for a word from the Lord, it is easy to forget to be faithful to His last set of instructions. God has told us to live lives that are faithfully following Jesus, not our imaginations of Jesus. We are to be faithful to Jesus and to share the Gospel with the world around us. You no longer have to climb up into the heavens to reach Him; He has come down to us in our worst hour. Instead of running from Him, draw near!
At the end of Elijah’s prayer God responds in great power as fire falls from heaven upon the sacrifice and burns up everything even the water in the trench. This causes all the people watching to break out in shocked praise of God. The Lord, He is God! This phrase is shouted by the people several times. There was no question on that day just who was God. It is indeed an amazing time when God demonstrates His great power. But this demonstration is leading somewhere. God is about to allow the rains to come back to Israel. Men love to give credit to everything but the One True God. In those days they would have accredited it to Baal the storm god, this was precisely his area of strength, water and fire the elements of storms. Yet it wasn’t Baal who answered by fire that day, and thus the people would know later when the rains begin, that it was Yahweh, not Baal, who had done it. In our day we would be giving the credit to nature, or to our scientist’s ability to manipulate it. But, we should remember that God is the God of nature. As the creator, He is the One who is ultimately in charge. Nature is following the laws that He put in place from the beginning. Now we cannot just run out and try to force God to show up in power. Elijah states clearly that he is following the instructions that God has given him. So what are our orders? Though this is a real event that literally happened, there are also spiritual lessons here. We can use this event as a metaphor for ourselves. God needs faithful believers who will risk their lives on the altar and publically stand up for Him, whether He promises a powerful sign or not. When we sacrifice our lives publically before the world and through prayer call upon the God of heaven, the fire from heaven will come down upon us. This is the Holy Spirit of God. Instead of destroying us, we are filled with the power to live godly lives and speak powerfully to the world around us. This is the way that God has determined to turn hearts back to Him. May we take time to repair the altar in our lives and begin walking with the Lord, rather than telling Him how He should be running things.