Good Monday to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
As you look at our world do you sometimes feel the darkness seems so powerful, so pervasive, so prevalent in almost every segment of the society in which you live, that you wonder if good could ever prevail, or truth could ever be victorious? In Israel there are many places where throughout their history the people felt much the same, and yet they experienced the power of God unleashed in such a way that history reveals that God is always ready to change hopelessness into victory! You know I’m in Israel today and our tour group is scheduled to visit such places today!
First, we’ll visit the area of Jezreel, the place where wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel built their winter palace and from which wicked plans of this terrible couple were developed and set into motion. It was finally in this place Queen Jezebel met her fate and the dogs ate her dead body as the ultimate humiliation! (2 Kings 9:33)
Next, we’ll visit Mount Carmel, atop which is a statue of the prophet Elijah with his arm raised toward heaven calling down the fire of God upon the altar of sacrifice. Perhaps you remember this great moment in Israel’s history when it seemed God had turned His back on Israel. King Ahab was a terrible, wicked king leading Israel into idolatry and turning Israel away from God. His wife Jezebel was a worshiper of Baal and had 450 prophets of Baal eating at her palace daily!
Ahab had outlawed worship of God and sentenced to death anyone found to be a priest of God! The prophet Elijah was harboring 100 priests of God in caves and providing them food and water. (1 Kings 18:13) Elijah had told Ahab that God’s judgment would be 3 years without rain and a great famine would result, and it did! (1 Kings 18)
Ahab and Jezebel were hard hearted and totally opposed to God, God’s people, God’s truth and God’s ways in Israel. Finally, God called Elijah to do a very courageous thing: go meet King Ahab and challenge him and his idol worshippers to a ‘divine duel’. Jezebel’s prophets of Baal and Elijah were to meet on the top of Mount Carmel, each bringing with them a bull to sacrifice. Each was to build their altar, put on it the wood and the animal, but do not light the fire. Instead, each was to call on their God and the God who responded with fire sent from heaven to burn up the sacrifice would be known as the one true and living God. King Ahab agreed, and 1 Kings 18 gives us the record of this great showdown.
The 450 prophets of Baal built their altar, sacrificed their animal and spent the morning calling out to their god Baal, but with no response. They even cut their own bodies with swords, but still no response. Elijah built his altar, sacrificed his animal and even soaked his altar with water, and then called out to God with these words: “LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that YOU are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, LORD, so these people will know that you alone are God…” (1 Kings 18:36,37)
Let’s stand there for a moment looking at this scene… the bleeding, exhausted, angry 450 prophets of Baal. Thousands of people who had come to watch this ‘divine duel’. A prideful, wicked King despicably leading God’s people Israel away from God. And there, Elijah, the old prophet, all alone in the face of such evil, courageously calling out to Almighty God, in great faith believing God could and would do whatever would convince these people of God’s decisive supremacy.
The record says next: “Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried out, ‘The LORD, HE is God! The LORD, HE is God!” From the top of this mountain, we can see the Mediterranean Sea off to the west, and the great valley of Armageddon, where the greatest battle of all time will take place at the end of time, to the south and east. And over there, on that far hillside, is still today, the town of Nazareth!
This is a place of decisive declaration from God that HE is supreme and sovereign over all, no matter what any person or spiritual leader or army or king or group of kings may claim. This is a place of decision. No matter the size or strength of the opposition seeking to eliminate God, God’s truth, God’s ways and even God’s people, will you and I stand courageously firm on God’s truth, as Elijah did?
From this mountain our tour group will travel down into the valley stopping alongside a creek that winds through the valley. This is the “Spring of Harod”, the place where Gideon was called by God to trust in God alone and God’s plan and God’s power when facing harassment from nearby invaders, the Midianites. That great story is found in Judges 6,7.
A major difference between Gideon and Elijah, of course, is that Elijah was a famous old prophet of God through whom God had done many great miracles as he had proved the power of God to Israel over and over again. Gideon was an unknown young man called by God to fully trust God and do something no one could imagine: lead a group of normal Israeli men, not trained soldiers, armed only with torches and clay pots, against an armed army!
If you’ll take the time to read this remarkable story, found in Judges 6,7, you will be amazed at the courageous faith of young Gideon; the ridiculous battle plan of God; and the remarkable military victory which took place near this ‘spring of Harod’, now called Gideon’s spring.
Now my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends, do you see the common theme of this day that I’ll be spending in Israel? One of the things we’ll be celebrating is how God has worked in this place down through centuries of time. Gideon experienced the delivering power of God at the ‘Spring of Harod’ about 1200bc. Elijah experienced God’s mighty power of sending fire from heaven to the top of Mount Carmel in about 860bc and of course Jesus was raised up in Nazareth in the early years of the first century.
In 1948 the United Nations miraculously renamed this area Israel and set aside this region as a place Jews could come home to from anywhere in the world, and I hope you have experienced the power of God in your life in the 21st century! Our great God is not restricted by Time, or Geography, or Politics, or any other human effort. God is free and ready to do whatever will accomplish His great purposes at any time, any place in the world. God seeks only one thing and that is what we celebrate this day in this remarkable place in Israel. That one thing is described in this verse: “The eyes of the LORD roam to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking to strengthen those people whose hearts are fully devoted to Him.” (2 Chron. 16:9)
So, I urge us all to be on the lookout and the ready, for God’s call to BE those people, courageous and ready for God to empower us to stand strong in our day! I think it’s time to worship and thank God for His greatness and His personal involvement in our lives, with this wonderful song, sung for us by a choir of African young men and women…
Today’s Scripture is 1 Kings 18,19.
Choose below to read or listen.
1 Kings 18, 19 1 Kings 18
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1 Kings 19
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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