False prophets & False gods - Part 9

Hello Everyone:

This segment is taken from 1 Kings 18:25-30 Ahab and Jezebel over the three year drought executed the true Israelite prophets and therefore pagan worship took the place of real worship to the true God of Israel. The fire of God’s presence, the fire of God’s power and the fire of God’s promise to His people had been extinguished. There was no longer any true public worship to God. God had to intervene!

What was true in Moses day was still true in Elijah’s day, and remains true today. It seems to make no difference to those who do not pray – whether it is truly of a divine or demonic nature. Do we want a counterfeit god or the true God?

The false prophets prepared their altar for sacrifice. Flies and buzzards were already descending upon their sacrifice. The false prophets pleaded and cried to Baal, their god of thunderstorms, hail, rain and lightning, to flash down and ignite the fuel they had placed upon the altar. In contrast, only one action from the true God of Israel is all that would be needed to ignite the wood, split the rocks and consume the bullock that Elijah was about to himself prepare. There was not a sign of any coming storm from the false gods.

Elijah mocked them saying, “Shout louder, call harder. Perhaps your god is busy in conversation. Maybe he is away on a trip. Perhaps he has fallen asleep. Awaken him to answer you!” Ahab and all the multitudes could see that the false prophets had false gods. How many times have we heard in our own time: “Education has the answer, Science has the answer, Economics has the answer, Sociology has the answer, Hedonism has the answer. No adequate answers have been found!  We keep searching. People (sheeple) keep following! We even have this plandemic with science working against it. In 2020, people still can’t trust in God and continue to place their trust in science and man. Mr Vaccination himself says that when we get the vaccination, the antibodies will not last and we will have to have multiple vaccines. That sounds like dollar signs for someone and death to others! Seriously, who is going to believe such garbage. UNFORTUNATELY MANY! Each of the experts is as frustrated as these false prophets on Mount Carmel – they do not have the answers. We, in modern times, are no different. We need to turn away from the false prophets and turn our eyes, ears, mind and hearts to the true God of Israel.

So Elijah, standing alone on the summit of Mount Carmel, gathered the crowd to come near. The hour of truth had come. “Come near, O Israel!” he shouted – “Come near to watch what God will do!”  Of course, many were skeptical and cynical but gathered around. He flung off his mantle, and with heaving muscles and straining back pulled twelve big rough rocks from the mountain soil. These he laid up in three tiers of boulders, four stones to each level. The twelve uncut, unhewn, unshaped, untooled boulders represented the twelve tribes of Israel. This altar stood as a symbol, a monument, to future great rock altar. This altar was to come one thousand years later (Golgatha which means rock of the skull) – Mount Calvary.

Elijah cried out to God to justify himself in the presence of this nation. Let God make bare His great arm, able to save them from their sins. Let Him send the fire of His judgment to consume the wood and flesh upon it. Let God’s presence be known, seen and revered among this wayward people. Let His Great Name be honored again. The altar stood as the spot where the judgment and mercy of God would fall in fire upon sin to consume and cleanse it away. This mercy would fall in love upon the sinner just as it would do in the future upon Calvary.

Around the altar, Elijah dug a deep trench to separate the place of sacrifice from its surroundings. It would hold the equivalent of twelve small casks of water as well as all the debris from the butchering of the bullock which he was about to sacrifice. In its complete consumption by fire, there would be a complete pardon of the sins of Israel. Elijah gathered the dry wood from the drought and placed them upon the altar. This wood would represent the future cross of Christ.

Next, we will begin with the sacrifice of the bullock at this altar built in truth.

Lessons learned:
We can not lean upon false gods. They are deceptions. They never work. If we do not go about our daily duty seeking God first and asking Him to bless all our undertaking and do them with love – they will count for nothing. We must trust in the One True God and lean upon Him for everything!

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