Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Greetings my family in Christ. As always, it is a joy to be with you on this communion day, the first of the month that we do a little extra to remember the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for you and me.

We gather this and every Sunday to offer our praise and worship to the God of all creation, and to receive and meditate on the word of God given the message of the day. Although Jesus loves you, regardless of your state of mind and heart towards Him, He gives you the choice of whether you will love Him in return. Hopefully, this message will help you to make the choice to believe on Jesus and start that love relationship with Him, and remember it is your choice and no one is forcing you one way or another. So, let’s visit our opening text which will help us start that decision-making process.

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”

But the people answered him not a word. Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it;

and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”

1 Kings 18:20-24

G. K. Chesterton once said that it is often supposed that when people stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. Alas, it is worse than that. When they stop believing in God, they believe in anything.

In our scripture we find the prophet Elijah going up against Ahab, the king of Israel, 450 prophets of Baal, along with the children of Israel who worshipped Baal. Here is a case where a group of people had stopped believing in the One true God and started believing in anything. This is not new, as the Children of Israel worshipped a golden calf shortly after God rescued them from Egypt, opened a path through the Red Sea, and then appeared to them in Sinai. Now they go through this foolishness after they had been witnessed to, and were told stories of God’s ability to deliver, as He did with their forefathers being delivered out of Egypt. Now in our scripture we read that Elijah asks the Baal prophets to bring the meat to the barbeque; one for themselves and one for him, upon which they were to put the cut-up bulls. And he says to not put any fire to it, as the true God would answer by fire. At this point we need to ask ourselves, who is my god? And can he deliver the goods?

• Is your car your Baal? Are you one of those that spend more time shining and detailing your car then reading the bible and worshipping the Lord? I have often said that on my way to church on Sunday I see more people waiting in line at the car wash than I do sitting in the pews.

• Is television your Baal? Do you spend more watching it than you do giving the Lord praise? I know some folks who go to church and who can tell you everything that went down on the Oprah show but ask them about some scriptures and they don’t know a thing.

• Is family and friends your Baal? I personally have family and friends that continue to schedule events on Sunday, during the time that I need to be in church. Now I am left with the choice to gather with my family and friends or come to church. Well, you can see what choice I made.

• Is smoking or drinking your Baal? Are you giving more time, effort, and money to it than you do the church?

Now I only mention four things, there are more, but you get the point, Amen! Believe it or not, the Israelites had many god options as well. Along with Baal they worshiped two other gods: Ashtoreth and Molek, but I concentrate on Baal here because no matter which god they worshipped they in the same manner, and because Baal was a god that resembled a bull, which was the first thing they worshipped after leaving Egypt.