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Beach or snow? Famous or rich? Never use your phone again, or never eat chocolate again? Some choices are fine to sit on the fence about. But some aren't.
About 860 years before Jesus, a prophet stood on a mountain in front of a whole nation and told them: you can't sit on this fence any longer. It's one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible, with fire from heaven, 450 opponents and a showdown between two gods. But underneath the drama is a question that's still very real: what are you leaning on?
What you'll learn
- Who Baal was, and why worshipping him was such a threat to Israel
- What the contest on Mount Carmel shows about the LORD
- What "sitting on the fence" between God and other gods might look like today
Ahab, Jezebel and Baal
King Ahab of the northern kingdom married Jezebel, a princess from Sidon, and together they promoted the worship of Baal (1 Kings 16:30–33). Baal was a Canaanite storm god. People believed he sent the rain, and rain meant crops, food and survival.
Most Israelites didn't give up on the LORD completely. They just added Baal, like an insurance policy. Meanwhile, Jezebel was hunting down and killing the LORD's prophets.
Then Elijah appears. His name means "My God is the LORD". His first words are a challenge:
"Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!’" (1 Kings 17:1)
If Baal is the god of rain, then stopping the rain for three years is a direct challenge on Baal's home ground. The rain god can't make it rain.
Showdown on Mount Carmel
After three years of drought, Elijah gathers the people and 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He says:
"Then Elijah approached all the people and said, ‘How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him. But if Baal is God, follow him.’ But the people did not answer a word." (1 Kings 18:21)
The word for "waver" literally means to limp. The same Hebrew word appears a few verses later to describe how the prophets of Baal danced around their altar. Fence-sitting, it turns out, is a kind of limping.
The test is simple. Each side prepares a sacrifice but doesn't light the fire. The god who answers with fire is God. The prophets of Baal go first. They call out from morning until evening, dance around the altar, and go to desperate, even harmful, lengths to get Baal's attention. Elijah mocks them: maybe Baal is busy, or asleep! But there's no voice, no answer, nothing.
Then it's Elijah's turn. He rebuilds the LORD's broken altar with twelve stones, one for each tribe of Israel. He soaks the whole thing with water, three times. No tricks. Then he prays a short prayer, asking God to show the people that he is God and to turn their hearts back. And:
"Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell facedown and said, ‘The LORD, He is God! The LORD, He is God!’" (1 Kings 18:38–39)
Two ways to pray
| Prophets of Baal | Elijah | |
|---|---|---|
| How many? | 450 | One |
| How long they prayed | Morning until evening | A short prayer |
| What they did | Shouted, danced around the altar, hurt themselves | Rebuilt the altar, soaked it in water, prayed |
| What they relied on | Their own effort to get Baal's attention | God keeping his word |
| Result | Nothing | Fire from heaven |
The prophets of Baal tried harder and harder, and got nothing. Elijah's prayer wasn't about his effort at all; it was about what God would do. False gods always demand more and give back less. The living God answers, and gives.
A hard part of the story
Straight after this, the prophets of Baal are killed (1 Kings 18:40). That's hard to read. At the time, Israel was a nation under God's covenant law, where leading people to other gods was treated as a capital crime. Christians today are not a nation under that law. When two of Jesus' disciples wanted to call down fire like Elijah on a village that rejected them, Jesus rebuked them (Luke 9:54–55). The church is called to spread its message by persuasion and love, never by force.
Today's Baals
Baal promised rain: security and survival. What do people today look to for the same things? Money, followers and likes, grades, sport, appearance, a relationship, gaming, being accepted by a certain group. Most of these are good things. They become "Baals" when we look to them to save us. The pastor Tim Keller described an idol as anything we look to for what only God can give.
Like Israel, most people don't reject God outright. They just add things, just in case. Three honest questions can help you spot your own:
- What do I think about most when my mind is free?
- What would devastate me if I lost it?
- Where do I go first for comfort when things go wrong?
Key words
- Baal: a Canaanite storm god people believed controlled the rain.
- Idol: anything we look to for what only God can give.
- Waver: to limp or hobble between two options, never fully committing.
- The LORD: written in small capitals in many Bibles, it stands for God's personal name, Yahweh.
How this points to Jesus
On Mount Carmel, the fire of God's judgement fell on the sacrifice, not on the people who had been wavering. Christians see a picture of the cross here, where Jesus took the judgement so people could be brought back to God (1 Peter 3:18). And Elijah prayed for hearts to be turned back; centuries later, John the Baptist came with the same spirit and power as Elijah to prepare the way for Jesus (Luke 1:17).
Think about it
Why did Elijah pour water all over his own sacrifice?Show answer
To make it impossible for anyone to say it was a trick, so everyone would know the fire came from God alone.
Why didn't the people answer Elijah at first?Show answer
Probably because they didn't want to choose; they liked having both, and choosing the LORD would cost them something.
Why can't a good thing like sport, money or popularity carry the weight of being someone's "god"?Show answer
Because it can be lost, it can't love you back, and it can't save you; when it fails, the person who built their life on it is crushed.
Take it further
Straight after his greatest victory, Elijah ran for his life, exhausted and so low he wanted to give up (1 Kings 19:3–8). God didn't lecture him. He gave him sleep, food and water, then spoke to him in a quiet whisper. That's the God this whole term is about: hope in hard times. Read that chapter this week, and think about what you lean on. Your worksheet helps you compare the two sides and think about today's Baals.
If you'd like to, you could pray: Living God, you answer when idols can't. Show me the things I lean on instead of you, and turn my heart back to you. Amen.