Introduction: The story of Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel is one of the most fascinating in the Bible! One lone prophet of the True God stood against 450 prophets of the idol-god Baal, with a group of Israelites gathered together to witness this event. The people who did choose to attend saw something that must have stayed with them forever!
Full disclosure: Sermon Central accepted and posted a message of mine based on this passage called “The Memorial That Disappeared” back in June 2021. This message is not just a copy and paste of that first message.
1 The words of Elijah to the people
Text: 1 Kings 18:20-25, KJV: 20 So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. 21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. 22 Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 23 Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: 24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. 25 And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
The first several verses of 1 Kings 18 tell us that; first, the LORD has announced to Elijah that the days of drought are just about over and second, the LORD told Elijah to present himself to Ahab. My feeling is that Elijah was really happy about the drought (and, famine: verse 2) and not too excited about facing Ahab again.
It was during this time when Ahab sent Obadiah, a follower of the True God of Israel, to work looking for grass. To digress for a moment, how a God-follower like Obadiah was appointed to Ahab’s personal staff is something I’ve never understood but, praise the Lord, there are righteous men in high positions at many locations. Such was the case here. Still, Dr. Vance Havner and perhaps others observe that Obadiah should have been praying for the Lord to send rain instead of trying to find grass with Ahab (paraphrased from a book I read years ago).
Obadiah’s conversation with Elijah deserves a message of its own (brief, to be sure). The important thing is that Obadiah was afraid at first to report Elijah’s presence for fear Elijah would disappear. But when Elijah swore to Obadiah “I won’t leave”, then Obadiah met Ahab to inform him about Elijah.
The encounter between Elijah and Ahab was short and to the point. Ahab asked, incredibly, “Are YOU the one who’s troubling Israel?”, meaning, perhaps, “Did YOU cause all these problems?” Elijah’s reply was fearless. “No, you’re the one causing the problems” and listed why. Then Elijah issued a challenge: “Bring me all Israel, the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of the groves—those who eat at Jezebel’s table. Have them meet me at Mount Carmel!”
And Ahab, to his credit, did so. Clearly not all the people of Israel were there but we can reasonably project delegates, messengers, representatives, or similar. My own personal guess is that they sent some of the best and brightest—or, maybe, some of the most dedicated Baal worshipers to see and confirm just what was what.
Now that they’re all together, Elijah gave a very brief opening speech (and of course we don’t know how much more he did say, if anything).The first challenge or opening statement was a rebuke to the Israelites who seemed to be, according to some of the commentators, worshiping the True God of Israel but were also worshiping Baal “in addition to” or “making sure”. Right.
Then Elijah gave statement 2, a grounds or ground rules for the contest, Each group, Elijah on the one side, the prophets of Baal on the other; each was given a bullock (required for many of the Levitical sacrifices; see the first few chapters of Leviticus) and the instructions for how the sacrifice would be offered.
Elijah had spoken, and there were no more words to say to any of the people, whether Israelites or Baal’s prophets. Now was the time for action, and the prophets of Baal leaped (literally) into action as part of their rituals.
2 The worship activities of Baal’s prophets
Text: 1 Kings 18:26-29, KJV: 26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. 27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. 28 And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. 29 And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
At the very least, we can give credit to the prophets of Baal for, here anyway, honoring the terms of the contest. They took the bullock, slaughtered it (implied), dressed it, and (implied) put the pieces on the altar which they had made. It’s not certain if these prophets, or anyone else, built that altar on the spot, right then, or if the altar to Baal was already there. What is certain is that for at least three solid hours, roughly 9 am to 12 noon, these men called on the name of Baal, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” or, in the Hebrew, “’habbaal, anenu’ ( according to the on-line study helps at https://biblehub.com/text/1_kings/18-26.htm).” Of note is that the Hebrew “ha” in front of a noun usually means “the” or something definite, not simply an abstraction or thought. These prophets literally thought Baal would hear them and answer!
There’s another thing, too, about the “prayers” to Baal—“oh Baal, hear us!”—uttered by his prophets. Some of us have watched outdoor sporting events where there are hundreds of people, sometimes thousands. The noise the fans or spectators make can swell to a mighty roar as the peoples’ voices unite in praise of their favorite team. That goes double for inside events such as basketball or related sports, as the noise and shouts echo or reverberate from the inside walls. Now, nothing like that existed at Mount Carmel, but just to hear 450 men united in their chants, prayers, songs, what have you is noble, even, as in this case, they were wrong.
Elijah seemed to sense how powerless these prophets were because, remember, they had been chanting for three hours, more or less, and nothing had happened. Elijah, then, begins to mock them, saying in so many words, “Keep on crying out loud! Baal’s a god, isn’t he? So maybe he’s talking to somebody else (and not you!), or he’s chasing/pursuing something, or how about this, maybe he’s asleep! Raise that alarm, fellas!”
This, then, seemed to cause the prophets of Baal to go even further into desperation. They kept crying out loud, but this time they added a new activity (!)—they cut (gashed) themselves so much that their blood gushed upon them! Whether this means they made multiple cuts or found an artery so that blood did squirt out, I can’t say, but these men were getting desperate indeed.
This went on until about 3 pm, “the hour of the evening sacrifice”. Note that as late as the time of the Apostles, the early Christians were still observing the hours of prayer (Acts 3:1, and Josephus' “Antiquities of the Jews”, xiv, 4, 3 quoted in Ellicott’s on-line commentary for that verse at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/ellicott/acts/3.htm).
The net result for these prophets? The same as at noon: “no voice, nor any that answered”; at at 3 pm, “ . . .there was neither voce, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded”.
They had failed. It makes me wonder, though: had these prophets been able to perform some kind of miracle or sign or something to more or less prove their power, as well as the power of Baal? Was it just tricks to deceive the people? Or was this something that was imposed on them? Every situation, and every person, was responsible for the choices they had made. For these 450 men, they had sold out completely to Baal, and, I would suppose, had been rewarded in one way or another (why else continue if no reward?). But not they had no reward.
Just the feeling that no matter how hard they had tried to “please” Baal, they accomplished nothing. Now it was time for Elijah to “call on the Name of the LORD (verse 24)”.
3 The wonder of how the LORD responded
Text: 1 Kings 18:36-40, KJV: 36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. 37 Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. 38 Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God. 40 And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there
Verses 30-35 narrate how Elijah did a few things before making this classic prayer. First, he rebuilt an altar of the LORD (there is no mention of when, how, or by whom this altar was made) and then he built a new altar to the LORD out of other stones (implied). Now that he had made a new altar, he took pains to prove he had no magic tricks or any gimmick in mind to artificially set fire to the offering. He had 12 buckets of water (three times four buckets) to basically drench the carcass, wood, and any kindling or tinder used to light the fire.
With all that done, Elijah then prayed. The bullock’s carcass was arranged on the new altar and all of the material that could burn now couldn’t possibly burn to the water’s soaking action! But none of that mattered to Elijah. He was doing right, he was right, and he knew that with the LORD’s help, he could not and would not fail
And then Elijah prayed. In verse 30, he had told the people ‘Come near unto me.” They must have seen him repair the old altar, and build the new one out of the 12 stones. Probably four of them were the ones who went down the mountain to bring water as he requested. Now, in view of the failure of Baal’s prophets, the Israelites must have been waiting to see what happened next. Elijah’s first sentence was a reminder that he had done nothing on his own impulses, initiatives, or anything like that. In a word, he did this at the LORD’s command.
Then he followed with the second sentence: (verse 37) Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. He knew, Elijah did, that the people had turned away from the LORD God of Israel. He also knew that the LORD could and would “turn their heart back again” or, perhaps, restore them to the position they had had before accepting Baal and rejecting the LORD.
Now what would happen?
You’ll recall the terms of the contest were simple: the Deity, whether Baal or the LORD, whoever answered by fire. “let him be God (verse 24)/” Baal had answered nothing at all, but the contest wasn’t over yet.
The LORD did indeed answer by fire! And what a wonder it was!
First, seldom had fire ever come down from Heaven. Lightning had sometimes caused fire, but nothing like this did I find in Scripture before this contest. So, not only was this rare, but it was also concentrated and complete. The fire consumed the sacrifice—as would be expected—but then also consumed the wood, the stones, the dust, and even the water that had apparently flowed or dripped down from the altar and into a good sized trench around the altar (see verse 32).
Not one other thing was consumed by the fire. Concentrated in one specific area, the fire consumed all that was mentioned in the text. Completely, and not one item more.
The story concludes on a somber note. Now that the people were done with Baal worship, Elijah encouraged them to take those 450 men and not let them escape. Even though Mt Carmel was roughly 50 miles from Samaria (based on the map at https://bibleatlas.org/full/samaria.htm), had any of these prophets escaped he could have possibly recruited more. Thus the latter state of things would have been worse than at first.
Some question why Elijah was so cruel, intolerant, vindictive (I’ve seen these and more) towards the prophets of Baal. For one thing, death was the penalty under the Law if anyone tried to introduce idol-worship into Israel (Deuteronomy 17:2-7, also see Keil and Delitzch’s notes at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/kad/1_kings/18.htm).
Secondly. let it be remembered that these men had tried to pry Israelites from the worship of the LORD to the worship of Baal, and, in spite of seeing Baal fail to respond, plus having a chance to repent, there is no record any of these prophets did so. They went to their graves believing in a deity that did not hear, did nor respond and worst—did not exist.
The question, then, is—Will you and I choose to worship the True God, or a fake?
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)
