“A Hillside Fight” (1 Kings 18)

 watch here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlE-2F3XoYM

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 21^st 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   

Daniel 4 - Nebuchadnezzar's Madness

            Dream interpretation.  Giant statues of gold, silver, bronze, & iron. The fiery furnace.  The lions’ den.  Can you think of short stories anywhere as captivating as those in Daniel chapters 1-6?  On websites, on TV, on Twitter and Facebook, there’s so much noise.  There’s partisan division; a lot of shouting without much listening. 

            I wanted us to begin 2018 looking at stories in the Bible.  Stories hold our interest.  If the story is good, we listen, we absorb it.  We don’t need to talk or argue.  We can receive what the storyteller has to share.  If that good story is in the Bible, then we meet God in it.  And my hope is that we can focus less on the noise of angry politics and more on the God we meet in the stories of the Bible – the only true God. 

It doesn’t mean we ignore the world around.  God has something to say and God often speaks through His church who is meeting Him in the Bible and in worship and then speaking from that encounter. Current events are always on the table, but we speak to our day from God’s perspective and a primary source for God’s perspective is the Bible. 

We could have gone to the Gospels or great stories of David or some of the fascinating accounts in the book of Numbers or Judges, but, felt God leading us to Daniel.  Here’s a curious question.  Who was the first worshiping body to hear Daniel as Holy Scripture, stories of God, read in its worship gathering?  How did congregations before ours receive the word of God as we have it in Daniel?

The first group was the gathering of Jews in Jerusalem in the 2^nd century, the 170’s – 150’s BC.  Israel was land God promised to the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people, but they had not governed that land for a long time.  They were subjugated by the Assyrians in the 8^th century, and then the Babylonians in the late 7^th and early 6^th.  Power passed to the Persians, and then the Greeks under Alexander the great.  It became really bad for the Jews in the second century as Alexander’s empire was divided among his four generals and Israel fell under the cruel hand of Antiochus Epiphanes IV.

He set up a statue right in the second temple, the temple of Haggai and Ezra.  In that space, holy to Jews, dedicated to God, he put up idols and performed abominable acts.  He persecuted and even killed Jews who would not renounce the way of Abraham and Moses.  The persecution under Antiochus was as bad as any the Jews had known.  In that context of humiliating oppression, Daniel was read as Holy Scripture for the first time.

Feeling powerless, worshipers could look to this Jewish hero who defied the might of Babylon and then Media and Persia.  While an exile, with no voice, Daniel and his friends stayed faithful in their worship of God and their refusal to participate in Pagan worship practices. 

In Daniel 1, they refused unclean food and ate only vegetables.  Maintaining proper dietary restraint as their tradition dictated, Daniel and his three friends outperformed all other Jewish conscripts and rose in wisdom and prominence before the Babylonian king.  In chapter 2, when death was the penalty for failure, Daniel successfully recited the king’s dream.  Daniel was praised even though he prophesied the king’s downfall. 

In chapter 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship a statue of the king.  For such a brazen revolt against the king’s edict, the three young Jews were thrown into the furnace, and in an enraged act of overdoing it, the king demanded the heat be raised and it was to the point that some of the guards were consumed by flames; but not Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Accompanied by an angel, they strolled around unharmed. 

Chapter 3 ended with the self-aggrandizing King, Nebuchadnezzar, declaring that anyone who blasphemed against the God of Israel would be ripped limb from limb.  Ironically, he couldn’t see that his own edict violated itself.  God didn’t need to make such macabre threats and God did not generally rip people limb from limb.  God allowed those who turned against him to fall into the destruction that came as a result of their own bad choices.  He needed no help from Nebuchadnezzar.

Chapter 4, this week’s Daniel story, continues the madness of King Nebuchadnezzar.  It is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in Nebuchadnezzar’s case, absolute power also scrambled his own brain and completely distorted his perspective.

Essentially what happens is the king has another dream.  This time when his own palace wise men and wizards cannot interpret it for him, he does not kill them.  Instead he moves on to Daniel.  Why he didn’t start with Daniel is anyone’s guess considering Daniel’s previous dream interpretation abilities.  In the dream, the king sees a tree – the great tree of the world.  All the world was blessed under the great tree.

However, a holy watcher (v.13) descending from Heaven declared the great tree should be cut down leaving only the stump.  The great tree will be but a stump, unprotected against the elements for seven years.  The voice of the holy watcher declared this would happen so that all the world would see that God most High is sovereign over even the great kingdoms of the world (v.17).  Those who rule kingdoms are no better than the poorest peasants and anyone who has power, has it because God has allowed them to have it. 

Daniel knew this dream was about King Nebuchadnezzar.  He didn’t want to tell the meaning because he knew it was bad news for the king.  However, Nebuchadnezzar encouraged Daniel, so he told him.  “The tree that you saw – it is you, O King” (v.20, 21).  Daniel went on to explain that Nebuchadnezzar had become the greatest king on earth, but by decree of God (v.24), he would be reduced to madness.  Nebuchadnezzar would leave human society and roam the wild fields, sleeping out in the open like an animal.  He would grow his hair and nails long and unkempt.  He would graze on grass like cattle.  He would lose the power of speech and logical thought.  This insanity would last seven years.  That’s how long it would take for King Nebuchadnezzar to see that God and not he was the all-powerful one. 

We aren’t told how the king reacted to Daniel’s interpretation.  The next word from the story teller is that all happened just as Daniel said it would.  Striding in all his royal finery along the roof of the royal palace, the king heard a voice from heaven declare all that had been said in the dream.  He was immediately driven from human society, stripped of his vestments and robes.  He became an inhuman creature, a mindless beast, and he stayed that way for seven years. 

Please note the progression of the story in Daniel 4.  It begins with King Nebuchadnezzar openly praising God.  “The signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me I am pleased to recount.  How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders!  His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his sovereignty is from generation to generation” (4:2-3).  It is self-centered.  Look at what God’s done for me.  But it is praise directed toward God.  Then in the middle of the story, Nebuchadnezzar sings a different tune.  Verse 30, “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” 

What a pivot!  The king moves from praising God for his wonders to praising himself for his own might and power.  The story ends with the king once again praising God.  “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are truth and his ways are justice; his able to bring low those who walk in pride” (4:37).  It’s a true statement and of all people, King Nebuchadnezzar would know.

What moves the story from self-serving praise to an unabashedly arrogant boast to humble praise?  There comes an interruption – and we all have these interruptions in our lives.  We don’t know if King Nebuchadnezzar heard the interruption.  We aren’t told.  We know King Antiochus Epiphanes IV did not hear God’s warnings.  He relentlessly terrorized the Jerusalem Jews in the second century BC and is thus forever vilified by the symbolism in Daniel.  He ranks with the worst of villains, Antiochus Epiphanes IV right alongside Hitler and all the malevolent despots of history.  No one is worse. 

Setting aside Antiochus, the interruption we see in Daniel 4 should be an interruption in our lives.  What matters for us today is when God interrupts our stories, to remind us that He is God and we are not, do we listen?  See Daniel’s fearlessness in verse 27.  He says right to Nebuchadnezzar’s face, “Atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed.”  Daniel was in Babylon.  Back in Israel, people were starving to death because their cities had been toppled and left as rubble, and their crops had been burned.  The people were oppressed because of the way Nebuchadnezzar’s soldiers acted.  Now Daniel tells him, it is time to atone. 

Have we benefited because others have suffered.  Do we drink coffee made from beans harvested by laborers who are paid slave wages?  Do we wear clothes made in sweatshops were workers don’t get paid enough and have no option of leaving?  “Atone … for your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed.”  That’s the message at the heart of Daniel 4.  Verse 27, to show that you know and honor and bow before God, show mercy to the oppressed. 

Daniel left the wicked king a way out.  He didn’t have to crawl about on all fours like an ox or cow.  He didn’t have to lose his mind.  That’s where self-obsession and power-obsession leads: mania.  Daniel, anointed by God, pointed to another path.  We, readers of the story have that path before us. 

“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink.  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when, O Lord, was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?  And the [King of all kings] will answer, ‘truly I tell you whenever you did it to the least of these my children, you did it to me’” (Matthew 25:37-40).

Do we see the interruption, hear the warning, and take the path opened before us by the word of God?  King Nebuchadnezzar did not.  He ignored the prophet’s word because he thought he was the ultimate one, the one favored by God.  He disregarded the warning, boasted of his own greatness, and ended up insane.  After his boast, he discovered that Daniel, whom he said he trusted, was right.  The prophecy Daniel gave came true. 

The crazy, grazing king returned to sanity when he lifted his eyes to heaven.  He strutted around when he should have bowed in humble worship, and so God, brought him low.  When, having been brought low, he raised his eyes in humble worship, God allowed him to stand once again.  The way we experience life is directly related to how we respond to what we know to be true about God.  

We know God through our knowledge of God’s son, our Savior Jesus Christ.  Note the difference between Jesus and the evil king of Babylon.  Nebuchadnezzar was a man who thought he was on equal footing with God.  Jesus was God who had become a man. 

Philippians 2:5-11:

⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was^[a] in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

           

            In life, when we are up against tremendous challenges, maybe under the heel of our own Nebuchadnezzar or Antiochus Epiphanes, we praise God because we know God is in control and will carry us through our hard times.  In life, when things are going well, and we find ourselves on top, doing the winning, we bow in humble worship and praise God, thanking Him for our successes as we work to be generous in uplifting those around us who wallow in their struggles.  When we’re up, when we’re down and at times in between, we praise God.

            Anne Lamott has write book titled Hallelujah Anyway!  The idea is that even when life is thoroughly crud-filled and painful, was praise because God is there.  Based on the idea that God is there and that we have the Daniel opportunity before us – to take the path of worship and mercy – I proposed a modification on her title.  God is God and we aren’t.  God is here and it is a good thing that God is here because God can and will help us. 

            Maybe on a hard day we say Hallelujah Anyway!  But, knowing God is with us, we say, Hallelujah Always.  God is in Babylon and God is here, and in control.  That’s good news, the very best of news. 

AMEN