Living under the reign of Ahab and Jezebel for a servant of God was a daunting challenge. Jezebel was a fanatical devotee of Baal (the rain and fertility god of the Canaanites). Ashtoreth was the female consort of Baal.
Israel, especially in Ephraim, worshiped Baal in three stages:
1) Placing the Canaanite gods secondary to Jehovah;
2) Considering Jehovah as a super-Baal;
3) Distorting Jehovah worship so closely to Baal worship, the people forgot Jehovah.
Worship of these false gods included animal sacrifices, male and female prostitution, and occasionally, human sacrifices.
Jezebel persecuted followers of Jehovah, even murdering the prophets of God in her zeal to Baalize Israel. A believing government official named Obadiah, hid 100 of the surviving prophets in caves by 50. Feeding 100 prophets at the end of a three-year drought (this drought was given by God at the word of Elijah as punishment for Israel’s sin) must have been exceedingly difficult, and is a commentary on the faithfulness of Obadiah (1 Kings 18:4).
King Ahab “did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him" (1 Kings 16:30). To exceed the evil of Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, and Omri was no small feat. Yet Ahab had the distinction of being more wicked in the sight of God than all these reprobate kings that ruled before him! He is remembered principally for two things: his own personal wickedness, and his marriage to Jezebel who brought the worship of Baal into Israel (1 Kings 16:31).
God’s intrepid prophet (Elijah) was miraculously sustained by God during the drought. As a rebuke to Israel’s apostasy, He sent Elijah to a Gentile widow (there were many Jewish widows) at Zarephath, a town on the Mediterranean coast. Finally, after 3 ½ years of drought, Elijah showed himself to Ahab (1 Kings 18:18), challenging him to have a contest between the 450 prophets of Baal and Elijah as God’s prophet.
It must have been an unusual sight on Mt. Carmel that day. On the one hand were 450 prophets of Baal, and an additional 400 prophets of the groves. No doubt, they were in good humor, realizing they had the enthusiastic backing of Ahab and Jezebel. They were probably musing, “ What could a lone prophet of Jehovah possibly do against 850 of the kingdom’s favored spiritual leaders?”
In Elijah’s probing question of Israel; “How long halt ye between two opinions?” (I Kings 18:21), he was actually accusing them of combining Jehovah worship with Baal worship. They had not totally rejected Jehovah, but had decided to worship both, ending up with a horrible syncretistic spiritual monstrosity.
In his proposed spiritual contest, Elijah dictated terms that only the true God could meet; bringing fire from Heaven on the sacrifice (1 Kings 18: 24). No doubt the countenances of the false prophets fell when they understood these terms. Trapped by Elijah’s terms and the watching crowd, they frenetically called on their non-existent god (Baal) for hours, leaping on the altar and even cutting themselves. They had to endure not only the utter silence from Heaven, but Elijah’s mockings as well: “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." (1 Kings 18:27).
After hours of fanatical pleadings from the prophets of Baal, their god was painfully conspicuous in his absence and silence.
At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah called the watching Israelites to draw near to his sacrifice (1 Kings 18:30). After preparing the altar and the dismembered bullock, he had the entire offering drenched with water three times, until all was sodden, and the trench around the sacrifice full of water.
Finally, Elijah prayed for God to answer by fire to bring Israel back to Himself (1 Kings 18: 36-37). The heavenly fire fell with such immediacy and ferocity, it consumed the sacrifice, the altar and even the water in the trench! This supernatural, pyrotechnic display of God’s omnipotent power had an immediate effect on the cold and compromising Israelites: they fell on their faces, loudly proclaiming faith in Jehovah alone.
Taking immediate advantage of this newfound faith in Jehovah, Elijah ordered all the false prophets to be executed. Following an additional prayer of faith, God answered Elijah by ending 3 ½ years of drought with a downpour of rain. God gave Elijah supernatural strength to run before Ahab to Jezebel (17 miles).
Unimpressed and angered with Elijah’s exploits on Mt. Carmel, Jezebel upon hearing of the death of her prophets of Baal, promised to execute Elijah within 24 hours. This news caused Elijah to make an ignominious flight to Horeb (Sinai), where God miraculously sustained him. (1 Kings 19: 1-18)
Please note our hero’s complaint to the Lord: “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:10)
God instructed Elijah to stand in a cave on Sinai. Then followed an awesome display of God’s supernatural power: 1) a wind so powerful, it broke rocks in pieces, 2) then a bone-jarring earthquake. 3) Finally, He sent a devouring fire. However, God was not in any of these powerful displays of Heavenly power. When the fire passed, there was a gentle stillness, and a “still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12).
A few observations are in order:
- God has it in his power to bring cold, dead hearts back to Himself.
- Some hearts are so refractory and scornful, not even great miracles will move them to repentance (Ahab & Jezebel).
- God’s chastening hand (3 ½ years of drought) prepared Israel to consider her apostate ways.
- God allowed wickedness to flourish for 3 ½ years, but finally used a man of faith to bring apostate Israel back to Himself.
- Despite spiritual victories on a grand scale, God’s servants can become deeply discouraged, even to the point of asking God to take their life. This is the deleterious power of human exhaustions, stressed emotions, and perceived isolation.
- In discouragement, God’s servants can feel painfully isolated, helplessly alone and lamentable failures.
- God’s prescription and treatment for discouragement was not pity, empathy or giving Elijah a sabbatical. Instead, it was:
- a quiet reassurance of his presence,
- a reminder that God’s servants are part of a larger remnant, though Elijah never met or saw the 7000,
- he ordered Elijah to immediately begin serving God again,
- a situation may not be as bad as it seems with our limited, finite perspective,
- working, serving and ministering has a healing beneficial effect on a discouraged heart,
- though I may represent a tiny remnant of belief, I can be miraculously used of the Lord and depend on His protection, power and sustenance,
- bleak circumstances need not discourage God’s servant when obey, serving and pleasing Him,
- God may not encourage us with miraculous interventions on a grand scale: he can do so with the sublime and subtle, barely discernible indications of his presence.
- Being a part of a believing remnant may cause us to be in danger, to lose our creature comforts, and may even cause us to live in a cave.
- Apostate Israel proves the point that the majority is usually on the wrong side of God’s favor.
- As apostasy deepens in a culture, faithful souls must choose to turn a deaf ear to the alluring temptation of compromise and accommodation: God rewards faithfulness, not capitulation.
- Thought apostasy may seem to be pervasive, God may have one of his own in surprising places: Obadiah had important responsibility in Ahab’s household, but was secretly supporting 100 prophets of God in caves.
- Apostasy is the end product of compromise, accommodation and blurring the lines of true worship and of failing to make a difference between the clean and the unclean: by the time of Elijah’s contest with Baal on Mt. Carmel, Israel was worshipping Jehovah and Baal at the same time!
This surely is a time to beseech the God of Heaven for a moving of His animating Spirit among His people!
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