The Lord God or Baal?

MEMORY VERSE: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” —Deuteronomy 6:4,5

I KINGS 18:30-39

THE true and living God of the Bible demands the full love and obedience of those who profess to serve him, and who are seeking his care and blessing. He will not accept any devotion to him which is less than the total love of our hearts and souls, and the using of all our strength in obedient service to him. How beautifully is this thought set forth in our memory verse!

There were a few in each generation of the ancient Israelites who displayed the desire to maintain this full devotion to Israel’s God, but the nation as a whole was most of the time very nominal in its professions of loyalty. Indeed, in many instances the majority were openly hostile to Jehovah, manifesting a preference for the gods of the heathen nations by which they were surrounded.

The scene of this lesson is the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel, at the time when the wicked King Ahab was ruler. The notoriously wicked Jezebel was his wife. It was at the time when Elijah was serving as prophet in Israel. Ahab went to see Elijah, and he asked the prophet, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” Elijah answered Ahab, “I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.”—I Kings 18:17,18

Elijah then called for a demonstration that the people of Israel might observe and be convinced that Jehovah, not Baal, is the true and living God. The priests of Baal, 450 of them, and 400 prophets of the grove, were summoned to Mt. Carmel, and invited to select one of two bullocks to be offered as a sacrifice. They were to build an altar, prepare the bullock for sacrifice, and place it on the altar.

But they were not to apply fire to consume the sacrifice. They were to call upon their god, Baal, to send fire to consume the bullock. This was a fair enough test, and there was nothing for the priests of Baal to do but to accept the challenge. So they prepared the altar and sacrifice according to plan, and then called upon Baal to send the necessary fire. But nothing happened.

The record is that they called upon Baal “from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.” (I Kings 18:26) Then Elijah mocked these priests of Baal, saying, “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.”—I Kings 18:27

Then the priests of Baal cried even louder, but there was no response. They even cut themselves with knives. They kept this up from midday until “the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice,” but to no avail. (I Kings 18:29) Then Elijah, believing that the priests of Baal had had ample opportunity for their demonstration, and that they had failed, proceeded to prepare the other bullock for sacrifice.

He repaired the altar of the Lord which had been broken down. To do this he used twelve stones. He made a trench around the altar, and filled it with water. He put wood on the altar, and the bullock for the sacrifice. He thoroughly drenched these with water. We even repeated this drenching of everything with water.

Then Elijah prayed to Jehovah: “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.”

As was to be expected, “The fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God.” Thus, through Elijah, the worship of the true God was, for a short time at least, restored in Israel, and the priests of Baal destroyed.—I Kings 18:40

QUESTIONS

Does the living God of the Bible accept less than total commitment to him?

Who was Elijah?

How did he prove that Jehovah is the true God?

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