And when these things begin to come to pass,
then look up, and lift up your heads;
for your redemption draweth nigh.
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March 20, 2008:Traditions | Just a few more weary days and then... I'll fly away... And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. |
| December 29, 2007:New Year's 2008 | ||
| November 3, 2007:How To Be Successful in Christian Ministry | ||
| October 23, 2007:Salmon |
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| The Show Must Go On William H. Haller |
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There is an expression in show business - the show must go on. The scripture we are going to study today has a distinct element of that truth in it. The results weren't exactly what the people expected though.
Ahab is now the king of Israel. Since Solomon, there have been a sequence of wicked kings - Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Omri, and now Ahab over Israel. During this same time, a mixture of evil kings (Rehoboam and Abijah) and good kings (Asa and Jehoshaphat) and have reigned over Judah. Jehoshaphat rules in a contemporary time with Ahab. In Israel during this time, God was not worshipped as was His right. In fact, in 1 Kings 16:33 it says, "And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." And that is saying quite a bit. He married outside of the Israelites, and began worshipping Baal with her.
Elijah is a prophet of God at this time. God shuts up heaven for a period of 3 years as punishment for Ahab and Israel's abandonment of Him and His statutes. There is neither rain nor dew during this interval. Elijah is miraculously fed by ravens twice daily during this period. He ends up going to Zarapeth and asks a widow woman who was starving and about to die for food. Because of her obedience to God in giving sustenance to Elijah, God provides her with a barrel of meal and a cruse of oil that never went empty or dry during the famine. Eventually, her son dies of an illness, and Elijah prays over the boy and he revived.
After this, we reach the story of today. Ahab has commanded his men to go search out all the rivers, streams, and wells to try to find any water to save his livestock. During this time, Obadiah (who had secretly saved 100 prophets of Israel in caves) runs into Elijah. Elijah tells him to go tell Ahab that Elijah is coming to see him. They meet and Elijah requests that all of the Israelites meet on Mt. Carmel to settle the who is God question once and for all.
When they are gathered on Mt. Carmel, (the 450 prophets of Baal, the 400 prophets of the groves, Elijah, Ahab, and the rest of the Israelites) Elijah proposes a test to force the people choose once and for all which God to follow. It is clear that the Israelites weren't expecting anything to happen or they would have chosen God in the first place. What they had set before them was a contest which should be particularly exciting! The king was in attendance which meant the entertainment should be of the highest quality. There were 850 prophets on once side versus old Elijah on the other. Should be quite a show.
And indeed, it was. Let's read the Scripture reading for today from 1 Kings 18:20-24 that describes the terms of victory for one prophet's camp or the other. I particularly think the final words spoken by the Israelites are very appropriate. The people clearly didn't expect either God to answer, and probably the prophets of Baal didn't either, but with 851 prophets trying to call fire down from the heavens and light a fire under the sacrifice without any other means, there was going to be a good show that was going to be fun to watch. The people replied, "It is well spoken." We'll get a break from the tedium of trying to survive in a drought and we can make fun of these religious nuts who claim to be in touch with a higher being and prove once and for all that all religion is false and they are all leaches on society. Maybe we can be rid of them all once and for all and there will be more food and water for the rest of us! You won't find any of those words in the Biblical account, but it is an extrapolation of the attitudes towards most of the church that we see today, so I assume that human nature being what it is, similar things were felt in the audience of that time as well.
The show goes on. Let's read the next section (1 Kings 18:25-29) from the Bible since it isn't included in the text. The prophets of Baal are invited to go first, pick their own bullock, et cetera. It is indeed high entertainment. Those old prophets of Baal, they started out just praying. Then they probably looked at the king (who along with everyone else was probably pretty upset with them that Baal wasn't sending any rain) and kicked it into high gear. They started leaping up on the altar, cutting themselves with knives and lancets till blood was gushing. They prayed and prophesied until the time of evening sacrifice. Adding to the high drama was old Elijah, mocking them at every turn, accusing their God of sleeping, talking, being on a journey, et cetera.
Then it was Elijah's turn. He rebuilt the altar using 12 stones representing the trees. The people were probably a bit bored by all of these hours of nothing happening, and this didn't look to exciting either. Then he had a pit dug around the alter and had the sacrifice and altar drenched with water. He wanted everyone to be sure that there was no fire that he could have concealed anywhere while building the altar that would burst into flame and consume the sacrifice. He didn't know just how God was going to set the fire, but he wanted the people to know that it was a supernatural occurrence without the slightest doubt. Then he prayed his simple prayer. Let's read the rest of the scripture reading from 1 Kings 18:30-40.
After his short prayer, the Bible says that fire fell from heaven right then and consumed everything - the burnt sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, and all the water in the trench. The people fell on their faces, because they knew the status of their own hearts, and cried out "The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God." Because that is what happens when sinners come face to face with God the Father. It happened in Elijah's day and it will happen when they stand before the God in Judgment. They will bow and say "Yes, Jesus Christ is Lord!". Here, there was some abject terror. It takes quite a lot of heat to melt stones. They didn't want any of God's righteous indignation coming there way.
Elijah takes the initiative and orders the people to take the false prophets and kill them. All of the prophets who had come looking to put on a show with great pageantry but with nothing of significance happening lost their lives at Kishon that day. Elijah warns the king to flee with his chariots because God was going to send rain. He beats the chariots to Jezreel, Ahab tells Jezebel what had happened to her prophets. For His part, God sends great wind, black clouds and much rain, ending the drought.
Satan is putting on His own show all around us 24x7. He is competing for every person's attention, Christian or non-Christian. He wants to distract us from God and from church. He pushes many things our way to try to distract even the most devout. There's fishing, hunting and vacations, shopping, work, sports, sickness, or simple exhaustion along with kid's schoolwork, activities, and sports. Then there are the biggies of TV, movies, plays, games, video, the Internet, et cetera. He'll throw anything he can into our way to try to get us to put our time and attention into it instead of church and God.
If he can't accomplish that, he wants to substitute his version of weak, watered down, ineffective, world centered religion for Christianity. He'll direct people to a church where they can be entertained, just like the Israelites by the prophets of Baal. Just make sure that the church never emphasizes Christ and the way of salvation and that the sins of the world will never be condemned and Satan will make the church a booming success. Make it as close to the world as possible, still having the name of Christianity, and let them go there where they won't be any threat and won't feel any need to change their life! Add in all the false religions of today for those who hate Christ and Christianity to go to instead of a Christian church (even if in name only) and he has a lot of the bases covered. There may not be people who worship Baal today, but there are enough false religions in the world today to make the prophets of Baal's heads swim. Each is just as eternally destructive as the worship of Baal in the days of Ahab.
The Lord, He is God! The cries echo from terrified hearts when God shows up, unexpectedly, and does what the prophet of God asks of Him.
What is the state of your church and denomination today? Stand back and evaluate it with a critical eye. Evaluate it with God's eye. Let His view illuminate your heart and mind. How is your service different from the service someone would see going to a church of the same denomination in another town or another part of town? If they vary only by what songs are selected to sing and what the subject of the sermon is and you know this will always be the case, then there isn't a lot of room for God to move. How much time and energy do we spend worshipping God on Sundays or in other services? Are we just putting on a planned show with no expectation of God showing up? Or do we come expecting God to show Himself and giving Him the worship He deserves? If He did show up in power, like in the time of the prophets of Baal vs. Elijah, what would our reaction be?
Are our services sedate like Elijah's? Are our services wild and crazy like the prophets of Baal? God can show up in either case. He doesn't favor one form of worship over another (that I know of anyway). That isn't to say that He is in favor of self mutilation like the prophets of Baal were practicing - He's not. But making a loud and joyful noise to the Lord is recommended over and over in the Psalms from 66:1 to 100:1. What is important is that we are giving our worship to the proper God and that our worship is truly from the heart.
We need to start coming to church with Elijah's spirit of faith and expectation that God will move in the service, touch people, and change hearts. God wants us to succeed and He wants to bless us. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the churches in the world today are just doing their own thing, putting on their own set show. You can go from one city to another, go into a particular denominations church, and know with only minor differences, exactly how the service will go because God isn't going to be allowed to interrupt it in any way. We come, some may come to Sunday School, we pray, we greet, we sing a few songs, the pastor preaches, on rare occasions there may be an altar call, and we all go home. The format is set and unvarying.
That is comfortable. And I'm not saying it is an evil thing in and of itself. There is something good about similarity. After all, there are only so many ways you can order things to get the expected elements of a service in, but sometimes that can become a straight jacket that prevents God's work from happening. God does have plans for us that He wants to carry out. For 92% of the churches in the world today, God's Spirit would be hard pressed to move in a service.
For some comparisons for worship, take a look at Rev. 4:1-11 and Rev. 19:1-6. This sounds much closer to the people of Israel's reactions to God's presence than what we see in churches today.
In too many churches around the world, too great a percentage of the congregation are going for the "show". They might never admit that they are going for those reasons, but when it gets right down to it, they really are. They have a fixed set of expectations that nobody better mess with. The acts are all planned in advance. They are expected to follow in a set order without exception. Nothing had better rock the boat or the natives will get restless and abandon ship.
When God shows up, it really messes with people. Most times, it won't be as dramatic as when God showed Himself to be God to the Israelites after Elijah made his brief petition and He lit up the place with a display of fire, but if it is, our reactions might not be that dissimilar to the Israelites. "The Load indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God." as we all fall on our faces in abject worship or fear (depending on our true state of heart).
Our churches would be a lot healthier if we came expecting God to work instead of expecting the same old show that we've been putting on for years. Let's pray for that to happen around the world this next week.
