"How long will you waver between two opinions?" Elijah famously challenged the Israelites (vs. 21). Or, as The Message paraphrase puts it, "how long are you going to sit on the fence?"
I Kings 18 is one of the most vivid chapters in the Old Testament and certainly one of my favorite. It describes a challenge posed by Elijah to stage a contest between himself and the prophets of Baal in order to finally determine who the real God is. The scene on Mount Carmel is described in rich detail, complete with quips from the prophet and images of the Lord's awesome power.
First the hundreds of prophets of Baal select a bull, cut it up, and then spend hours exhausting themselves to persuade Baal to answer by fire. After Elijah starts taunting their god for his lack of response, they begin cutting themselves, desperate to invoke a divine response through their self-harm. But it's no use - it's hopeless (vs. 29).
Elijah, in turn, dumps buckets full of water upon his prepared bull. Then, with a simple prayer asking God to reveal Himself and prove His power, fire comes down from heaven and consumes Elijah's sacrifice and even laps up the water in the surrounding trench. It is a complete vindication for the prophet and a complete victory for the Lord!
The false prophets of Baal and Asherah pay with their lives, and the Lord brings the severe three-year drought to an end with a raucous rainstorm.
There are times when I long for a repeat of this kind of "contest" in the modern age - a miraculous event to prove to a skeptical world the claims of our God. But God rarely reveals Himself in the way described in this chapter. Instead, His chosen vehicle to make Himself known is faith. Trusting in God through faith even when we have not seen for ourselves leads us to being blessed more than those who have seen such miracles with their own eyes (John 20:29).
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