How Long Will You Go Limping Between Two Different Opinions?1
1 Kings 18:20-29
20So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. (The whole band of 850 priests, in all their showy outfits, gathered on the mountaintop to confront the one lone prophet of the living God.) 21And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. (In silent awe, the crowd listened to the one courageous man of God, as he offered them the great choice of God or Baal, and proposed one grand test to prove which was truly God.) 22Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD, but Baals’s prophets are 450 men.
Some say there is safety in numbers, but numbers do not prove something is right. A brave person is someone who holds to the truth, when thousands love a lie.
23Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. 24And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.”
“As when a wave,
That rears itself, a wall of polished glass,
For leagues along the shore, and hangs in air,
Falls with one deafening crash, so rose the shout
Of answering acclamation from the crowd
White-faced, with restless lips and anxious eyes,
Baal’s prophets heard, their hundreds cowed and mute
Before one man. They dared not, in mere shame,
Decline the challenge.”2
25Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.”
He knew their tricks and that they would use sleight of hand to cheat if they could. So he said, “But put no fire to it.”
26And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. (They multiplied their prayers and showy gestures until they had performed every ritual in their religion. But the sun-god would not even lend them one spark from his fiery sphere.) 27And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” (Idolatry deserves contempt. Elijah’s sarcasm was holy, though it was a bitter truth for the prophets of Baal to hear. What would Elijah say today about the Roman Catholic religion that claims their communion bread actually turns into the body of Christ or of other groups who say they are Christian but claim their religious ceremonies are somehow magical? He would laugh them to scorn. As followers of Jesus, we mix pity with our outrage.)
28And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. (Many false religions involve a lot of self-torture. Our God takes no pleasure in the miseries of his children. Many false religions demand lives of pain, affliction and fasting until the bones stick out. These may be part of worshiping a demon god, but the true God has no love for such behavior.) 29And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.
“They writhed and tore
In ecstasies of grief and rage. At last
They hung their heads in mute despair, and looked
Upon the ground.”3
Baal could do nothing. Our next reading will show us what Jehovah did.
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1 1 Kings 18:21
2 From The Days of Jezebel: An Historical Drama by Peter Bayne, 1872.
3 Ibid (above)
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