Going Back To The Power Source Part 2

As the two men face off, Ahab angrily accuses Elijah for being a trouble maker. He accused him of being responsible for the sever drought and famine sweeping the land.

Elijah not taking what was said, he strongly told Ahab that the reason of the drought and the severe famine was because of him and his descendants who had sinned, turning their backs on the commandments of God and committing idolatry and false worship.

Elijah challenged the king to summon the people to a contest on Mt. Carmel, a contest between himself and the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18:19). 450 of the prophets served the false god Baal and the other 400 prophets served the false god Asherah. Ahab accepted the challenge thinking this would be the one way he could get rid of the troublesome prophet and eliminate the worship of the LORD once and for all (1 Kings 18:20).

Completely deceived by his faith in and worship of the false god Baal, Ahab excitedly sent word of the contest throughout all the Northern Kingdom, summoning the people to attend. Obviously, there were multiplied thousands who gathered together to witness the contest.

Elijah jumped on the people big time. He got into their case because they were wavering between two opinions. No longer could they debate who the true and living God was. No longer could they claim that all gods were equal, that all gods represented the one true and living God.

No longer could they serve both the LORD and Baal. It was time to make a decision, time to make a forceful and conclusive declaration that the LORD (Jehovah, Yahweh) was the only living and true God. All other so-called gods were false, just the creation of man’s imagination.

The people could no longer straddle the fence, engaging in the worship of both Jehovah and false gods, no longer limp along between two opinions. They must now decide, take a stand for the LORD and declare the truth, that He and He alone was the true and living God.

James 1:8 says, "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

Luke 16:13 says, "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon"

Elijah told King Ahab to have his servants bring two bulls for sacrifice. He told the king and his false prophets to only prepare one of the two bulls for sacrifice but not to light any fire. He wanted them to call on their false gods to light the fire for the sacrifice themselves.

Calling on their false god Baal to light the fire, they danced around the altar from morning until noon (1 Kings 18:25-26). But there was no answer, no response to their prayers. The false god Baal was silent.

Sometime around noon, Elijah began to mock and taunt the false prophets. He suggested they shout louder, for perhaps Baal was meditating, busy at some task, traveling, or off sleeping someplace and needed to be awakened (1 Kings 18:27).

The false prophets were getting irritated and began their false worship even louder. It had gotten so bad, that they followed the ritual custom of cutting themselves and letting their blood flow. This was a symbol of self-sacrifice, which they hoped would arouse their false god Baal to take action. Note that the mutilation of the body, cutting oneself to let the blood flow, was prohibited by the LORD (Leviticus 19:28; Deut. 14:1).