Rob Tennant, Hillside Church, Chapel Hill, NC
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Ahab was one of the kings
who ruled in ancient Israel. His actions
as king hurt the people he was responsible to rule and disrespected the God he
was supposed to serve. God saw it
all. Ahab was more wicked than the
evil kings who preceded him. And as if
it had been a light thing for him to insult God by repeating the rebellious,
disobedient ways of his predecessors, he then took as his wife Jezebel of the
Sidonians. Disrespecting Yahweh, Ahab
followed Jezebel’s lead and worshiped the false god Baal.
For her part, Jezebel
attempted to have every prophet of God in Israel killed. She would have succeed had not Obadiah secreted
100 prophets away in caves, unbeknownst to her.
This was not the later prophet Obadiah for whom Biblical book is named. This Obadiah was Ahab’s own palace
manager. Jezebel could not murder the
prophets he saved. Nor could she get her
hands on the prophet, Elijah who foretold the crippling drought. His clear spiritual authority infuriated her
and confounded Ahab. Yet Ahab persisted
in defying God.
He erected an altar for
Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. He made an Asherah
pole, which God had strictly and repeatedly forbidden. This Ahab, called to lead in God’s name, did
more to provoke the anger of the Lord,
the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him (1
Kings 16:29-33).
In the third year of the drought,
God sent Elijah to face the wicked king.
They stood before one another and the king barked at the prophet, “Is it
you, you troubler of Israel” (18:17)?
Elijah would not be cowed. “I have not troubled Israel” he retorted, “but
you have. You have forsaken the commands
of the Lord” (v.18).
Forsaken God’s commands; disregarded God’s
way. Do we do that? Read through the Old Testament, and over and
over, the tension that afflicts ancient humanity comes when individuals turn away
from God and to their own wisdom and their own cravings. Driven by a lust for
power and security, they abandon faith.
In the garden, Eve reached for her own autonomy
instead of abiding by God’s boundaries and keeping her hands off the forbidden
fruit. She tried to rewrite the rules,
replacing God’s leadership with her own.
Adam dumbly followed. It repeats
over and over; one takes the initiative and disobeys God; others sin by
following along.
Throughout the book of Judges, feeling threatened
by powerful neighbors, Israelite tribes turn away from proper worship of
Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; instead, they worship idols –
statues representing Ancient Near Eastern fertility gods. Israel does not yet have a king in the book
of Judges, but when the story shifts, and the nation becomes a monarchy, the
pattern of rejecting God persists.
We know nothing of worshiping idols. Were someone to set up a statue, declare it
to be god, and call us to worship it, we would mock them as superstitious and
pre-scientific. Yeah, that’s not
God. I know the guy who made it. Joe.
He’s got a studio in Carrboro.
He’s a great sculptor. I might
pay a lot for one of his pieces and use it to decorate my home. Yeah that Joe’s a real artist. But, he’s not a god-maker. I’m not worshiping something he created. That would be stupid.
Fine! But,
do we ever, in our lives, put things in the place that should be occupied by
God? Do we relegate God to the seldom
visited corners in our lives? Yes, God
has a voice, but do the choices we make show that we have reduced God’s
voice? Do we live as if we think we can
decide whether we will ignore God or listen to God? Would an examination of our lives, an audit
of our values, reveal that we see God as being at our disposal instead of us
existing to love, worship, and serve Him?
Idolatry appears silly to 21st century sensibilities,
but Idolatry at its base is simply the willful rejection of God’s
authority. Compartmentalizing our lives,
locking God into a closet, we commit modern day idolatry. When we see God as something we can pull out
to decorate the house at Christmas or Easter or someone long ignore we can to
turn to when we desperately need to ‘throw up a prayer’, then we willfully
reject God’s right to reign over our lives – the entirety of our lives.
Elijah had something for Ahab. Each one accused the other of troubling
Israel. Elijah took it beyond just a
verbal boxing match.
Get them all together! He told Ahab. Assemble your prophets of Baal, the ministers
who lead worship around the Asherah poles.
Bring them all to the top of Mount Carmel. And bring the people too, because, we’re
going to rumble on the mountain top.
Bring everyone to see a hillside fight.
Ahab obliged.
The prophets trooped up with Ahab in audience. The people amassed and Elijah approached
them. He wasn’t impressed with the king
or with the religionists of Baal-worship.
Elijah was there for Israel, for God’s chosen people. He looked right them as he asked, “How long
will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, then
follow him” (18:22).
Joshua, from several generations earlier comes to
mind. When the people had first settled
the Promised Land he said to them, “Choose this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods of your ancestors or the gods of the Amorites. But as for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord” (Joshua 24:15). The words of the
resurrected, glorified Jesus come to mind.
In Revelation 3:15 he told the church at Laodicea, “Because you are
lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my
mouth.”
The Lord Jesus demands that we be all in or not at
all; he has no use for halfway faith.
Our faith might be imperfect. We
might mess up daily. Jesus has grace
for that. We are saved and born again
because of how much love he gives, not because of how much faith we show. Our all-in faith doesn’t provide salvation;
our all-in faith indicates that we see who Jesus really is, Lord of Lords and
King of Kings.
It was on.
Elijah set the terms and the company of Baal prophets accepted. Atop Mount Carmel they killed a bull and set
it on an altar. That was the easy
part. Next, they had to call on Baal to
rain fire from heaven to ignite and consume the offering. From morning to noon, they cried out, “O
Baal, answer us” (18:26). The thing
about false gods is they can’t answer.
They aren’t real. Baal’s prophets
danced around the altar, desperate to show up Elijah and be found acceptable in
Ahab’s sight.
At noon, Elijah was really feeling himself, so he
taunted. Think smack talk is vicious
from today’s playground court basketball players? Prophets invented trash talking centuries
before anyone knew what basketball was.
Elijah says, Come on guys, call a little
louder. He is god, right? Maybe he’s off meditating somewhere. Maybe he’s wandered off. Could it have been Taco Tuesday around the
Asherah pole and old Baal overdid it and now he’s ‘indisposed?’ Could that be it? I know, I know, he’s asleep. Shout louder.
They did.
The prophets of Baal fell into a frenzy.
They took out swords and blades and began slashing themselves. I can’t tell you how glad I am that
self-mutilation is not part of our worship tradition. It was part of theirs. The hours dragged on and the prophets of Baal
wailed and raved and their blood flowed and their horse voices dissipated like
campfire smoke in the air as the day grew shorter.
My turn, Elijah said, and he invited the crowd in close,
and they stepped forward. He prepared
his bull, laying the carcass on the altar for the Lord. A trench was dug around the altar and four
jars of water were poured over the offering, drenching it. This was repeated, and again. Twelve jars of water soaked this offering. No way was it going to go up in flames.
Elijah prayed.
O Lord … let it be known that you are God in Israel. O Lord, answer me, so that these people will
know you are God. God did. Flames from God don’t worry about how wet the
kindling is. The bull was consumed. The wood was consumed. The stones were consumed. Do you know how hot fire has to be to consume
stones? The dirt was consumed and so was
the water in the trench that had been dug around the altar. The people fell on their faces because
that’s what you do.
Then the dark turn in the story. We must not ignore or try to rationalize
it. Elijah commanded the people to slaughter
all the prophets of Baal. They did. For a moment, they literally cut the
syncretism and idolatry right out of Israel.
A Bible reader’s only good response is to be horrified and troubled by
the violence of Elijah. Jesus tells us
to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Mt. 5). Why did God condone violence in Elijah’s day
and promote turn-the-other-cheek peace in Jesus’ day? I can’t answer that this morning. I just urge
you to see the tension and sit with it and not rush to resolve it. Elijah won the hillside fight of 1 Kings 18.
Another hillside fight concerns us. This one is fought every time we gather and
every time each of us as individuals make the choices that order our
lives. It’s based on a question. I’ve posed many questions this morning. This is the one to remember and it doesn’t
come from me.
The words of the true prophets speak beyond their
own lifetimes. This is from Elijah to
each one of us. Imagine yourself sitting
with the prophet. He’s agitated, but
also focused. He wants your full
attention. Forget about what you’re
doing right now, thinking about lunch after church. Put out of your mind the “to-do” you’ve been
compiling these last few minutes. Those
of you who’ve been dozing? Wake up from
your catnap. Elijah has a question you
and I need to hear and take serious time to answer.
“How long will you limp along carrying two
different opinions? If the Lord is God,
follow him. If something else rules your
life, give yourself to that.” Wrestling
with the question – that’s the hillside fight we must enter. We cannot hedge our bets. Faith is not betting it all on Jesus; or
hedging, betting some on Jesus, and some on other things. Faith is acknowledging Jesus as Lord,
realizing our only hope for life comes in receiving forgiveness from him, and
then submitting to him everything in our lives; every relationship; every dream
and ambition; every penny in the bank account; ev-ery-thing. He’s Lord over all.
We conclude with an invitation as we do every
week. Don’t try to answer Elijah’s
question right now. If you really want
to wrestle with it, if you really want to consider making God Lord of your
entire life, all the time, then during this invitation time, come to the steps,
kneel, and pray looking to the cross.
Ask the crucified, risen Lord Jesus to begin helping you reorder life so
that He alone occupies the center and life flows from who you are in Him.
AMEN
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