Today's Bible Reading: 1 KINGS 17:8-20:22
1 Kings 18:21
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.”
We live in a blended society. We have blended families, blended drinks, a 50/50 blend of clothes, and even blended words such as brunch, bromance, frenemy, and off course chillax. But there are some attempts to blend items together that don’t work. I mean would you drink a banana and pickle smoothie? Perhaps, but most people wouldn’t.
The Northern nation of Israel attempted to blend together two incompatible things. King Ahab and his wife Jezebel directed the people to worship Baal along with Jehovah God. They had the places of worship of the God of Israel destroyed and God’s prophets killed (1 Kgs 19:10). They replaced them with altars of Baal and installed the prophets of Baal to indoctrinate and instructed the people in Baal worship. They people still worshipped Jehovah along with Baal. Their problem was syncretism, as they attempted to blend what couldn’t be blended.
God had cautioned the children of Israel to avoid this very thing instructing them, “You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the people who are around you” (Deut 6;14). He said, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3). He told them, “I am the first and the last; besides me there is no other god’ (Is 44:6). Yet they would not hear or heed his counsel and sought to merge two opposing religious beliefs into one. The problem was Jehovah alone is God; all other declared deities are false fabrications of a fractured humanity. Jehovah’s exclusive claim to be God excludes all others from that assertion. Jehovah and any other god cannot be blended together. The other god is a non-entity that doesn’t exist. (Ps 115:4-8).
So, enter Elijah onto the scene to clarify the distinctive. He possesses a question to the people of Israel gathered atop Mount Carmel for a battle of the Gods. He asks, “How long will you falter between two opinions” He saw their attempts for a blended religion as they wavering between two allegiances. They wanted to create a third inconceivable narrative where both Jehovah and Baal were worshiped equally. Their problem was that this version was not viable. The only opinion was to either worship Jehovah God or the false god Baal. This is true today. God alone is God and all attempts to unity Him with the false gods of the world will fail.
Elijah, after clearly presenting the distinction calls for a decision. He says, If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” A decision must be made. So, Elijah calls for a showdown to demonstrate which God is authentic. He has the 450 prophets of Baal who are present to build their altar, place their sacrifice on it and call on their god to consume it. After a whole day of watching, pleading and waiting, “no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kgs 18:29). Their sacrifice remained untouched. Then Elijah repaired the altar to Jehovah that had been destroyed, placed his offering on it, dowsed it with water three times and called on God to consume it. Now the interesting plot twist to this story was that there had been a severe famine that God caused to strike the land and Elijah uses the most precious commodity available, water, to make it impossible to light his offering. But God defied the odds and brought fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, the water and the stone altar. The reaction of the people was to fall on their faces and say, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God” (1Kgs 18:39). Baal was rejected and the Lord was revered. You can’t blend Jehovah with the gods of this world, you must choose one and follow Him.
Today rejoice that Jehovah is God and there is no other. Praise the Lord that the false gods of this world are the mere works of the imagination of men and have no position or place alongside the Lord. Ask the Lord to help you follow Him alone that your behavior might demonstrate your belief. Ask Him to help you stand today like Elijah against all attempts to combine the Lord with the false religions of the world to form one world religion. Ask him to help you remain faithful to Him and not falter.
Comments